Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
OK, folks, for everyone who wanted to put forth your favorite theory about how downwelling radiation from the atmosphere is a fantasy, or how a cool atmosphere can’t leave the surface warmer than no atmosphere, or how pyrgeometers are fatally imprecise … this is the thread for you.
However, I’m going to ask that before you start, you understand my actual position on these questions. So I strongly request that before you comment, you read the following four posts. That way, you’ll be clear about my thoughts on the matter.
Can A Cold Object Warm A Hot Object? 2017-11-24
Short answer? Of course not, that would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics —BUT it can leave the hot object warmer than it would be if the cold object weren’t there. Let me explain why this is so. Let me start by introducing the ideas of individual flows and ne…
Radiating the Ocean 2011-08-15
Once again, the crazy idea that downwelling longwave radiation (DLR, also called infra-red or IR, or “greenhouse radiation”) can’t heat the ocean has raised its ugly head on one of my threads. Figure 1. The question in question. There are lots of good arguments against the AGW consensus, but this…
The Steel Greenhouse 2009-11-17
There is a lot of misinformation floating around the web about the greenhouse effect works. It is variously described as a “blanket” that keeps the Earth warm, or a “mirror” that reflects part of the heat back to Earth, or “a pane of glass” that somehow keeps energy from escaping. It is none of these things.
People Living in Glass Planets 2010-11-27
Dr. Judith Curry notes in a posting at her excellent blog Climate Etc. that there are folks out there that claim the poorly named planetary “greenhouse effect” doesn’t exist. And she is right, some folks do think that. I took a shot at explaining that the “greenhouse effect” is a…
OK, now that y’all have read those four posts, and you are all clear about my position, let me offer some data to focus the discussion. Figure 1 shows the month-by-month surface shortwave (solar, “SW”) and longwave (thermal infrared, “LW”) radiant energy flows at the SURFRAD station in Goodwin Creek, Mississippi. The US maintains something called the SURFRAD (Surface Radiation Budget) Network of eight surface measuring stations. These have a variety of sensors that, as the name suggests, measure a variety of surface radiation flows. Each station has a Downwelling Pyranometer, Upwelling Pyranometer, Downwelling Pyrgeometer, Upwelling Pyrgeometer, UVB Sensor, Photosynthetically Active Radiometer, Normal Incidence Pyrheliometer, and a Shaded Pyranometer. These are calibrated annually to assure accurate measurements. They collect data on an almost continuous basis, 24/7/365. The stations have data from 1995 to the present.
So I picked a SURFRAD station at random, Goodwin Creek, Mississippi. And I picked a year at random, 2014, and downloaded the monthly average data from here. After I plotted it up I thought “I wonder how well this agrees with the CERES satellite-based dataset?” So I added the corresponding CERES data to the chart. Here is the result.
Figure 1. SURFRAD and CERES data, Goodwin Creek, Mississippi. The CERES data is for the 1° latitude by 1° longitude gridcell where the SURFRAD station is located. The background shows the Goodwin Creek SURFRAD station.
Now, folks have been questioning lately whether the CERES data is accurate enough for the type of analyses that I do, whether it is fit for the purpose … this should allay some of their concerns.
With all that as prologue, here’s the important part of this discussion.
The red|orange lines show the amount of solar energy that is absorbed by the surface. It’s the net of the downwelling solar minus the solar that is reflected back upwards from the ground. As you can see, the annual average solar energy absorbed by the surface is about 150 watts per square metre (W/m2).
The yellow|gold lines, on the other hand, show the upwelling longwave (thermal infrared) energy, energy that is radiated upwards from the surface. The annual average upwelling longwave energy is about 395 W/m2.
Now, for all of you that think that downwelling radiation from the atmosphere is a mirage, here’s the question.
If on an ongoing basis the surface is only absorbing 150 W/m2 of solar energy and is radiating 395 W/m2 of energy … why isn’t it frozen solid?
Seriously. If it is constantly radiating far more energy than it is absorbing … why isn’t it a block of ice?
To me, the obvious answer is, the surface is also absorbing downwelling radiation from the atmosphere. In Figure 1 above, the blue|cyan lines show the total of the net solar (SW, red|orange lines), plus the downwelling longwave thermal infrared (LW) from the atmosphere.
The annual average of the net downwelling radiation at the surface (SW +LW), the total energy absorbed by the surface, is about 490 W/m2. This is about a hundred W/m2 more than the energy that is lost to radiation, with the rest of the surface energy loss being in the form of the net of the sensible and latent heat lost gained and lost by the atmosphere via convection and conduction.
So there you have it. If you don’t think that downwelling LW radiation leaves the earth warmer than it would be if there was no atmosphere, you need to explain the mystery source of the additional energy necessary to keep the earth from freezing. And no, it’s not geothermal heat. We know from borehole measurements that geothermal heat, in general, is on the order of a tenth of a W/m2 or so … and we’re missing about 395 W/m2 emitted minus 150 W/m2 absorbed equals 245 W/m2 necessary to prevent freezing.
So what is the mystery source?
Let me add that the most excellent agreement between the SURFRAD and the CERES data means that it’s not instrumental error, or scientists who don’t know what they are measuring.
So where is the energy coming from?
My best to all, let the bunfight begin, and please, keep it civil … I may be wrong, but I’m not an idiot …
w.
As Usual I Politely But Loudly Request: QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING. I can defend my own words. I can’t defend your interpretation of my words.
Nice try Willis, but unfortunately there is no shortage of people whose understanding of this issue is guided only by their politics or their religion. You are never going to persuade them of anything using logic and scientific arguments.
Certainly, the “politics or religion” is a motivating force for those who deny the radiative “greenhouse” effect. I think another factor is that most of us don’t notice the radiation around us from objects at “ordinary” temperatures. We only really notice radiation from hot stoves, or from direct sunlight, when we can’t ignore it. It’s hard to grasp that all solid objects are both radiating and absorbing radiation all the time; it’s even harder to grasp that the air we breathe is absorbing radiation and radiating back at us.
So, when told that the atmosphere is radiating heat back to the surface, some folks will refuse to accept it because it is something outside their everyday experience. Even if we know the physics, most of us still go through our daily lives without noticing or thinking about the radiation we are exchanging with our environment. If we can’t feel it, it takes an intellectual effort to accept it as reality.
It’s similar to our understanding of relativity. We can read that clocks in orbit run slower than clocks on earth. We can understand the mathematics of it, which aren’t at all difficult if you have a decent high school education. We can accept that it happens every day with adjustments that have to be made to the time signals from GPS satellites, but I suspect that most of us, with our Newtonian brains, can’t really “feel” it. If we were exposed to internet postings that portrayed general relativity as some sort of leftist trick designed to destroy our industrialized society, no doubt we’d be hearing a lot of relativity-denials too.
Clocks in orbit run faster – not slower. Gravity slows time….velocity slows time. Also, it may not be necessary to daily correct GPS satellites.
Actually, both smart rock and antigriff are correct in part and incorrect in part. Was covered in my introduction to ebook The Arts of Truth. GPS satellite atomic clocks need to have 20 nanosecond precision relative to their equivalent earth clocks. They are in orbit at 20000km altitude at a velocity of 14000km/hr. Thanks to velocity time dilation (special relativity) they ‘tick’ 7 microseconds per day slower. Thanks to spacetime curvature from Earth gravity (general relativity), they tick 45 microseconds per day faster. The net error is 45-7=38 microseconds per day faster, or 38000 nanoseconds. If not corrected for continuously, the daily GPS positional error drift would cumulate to about 10 km.
Newton’s truth is good enough to figure the GPS orbit, but not the GPS atomic clock net error.
Hence one of hundreds of illustration of ‘the arts of truth’. The book is mainly about untruths artfully disguised in various ways. The penultimate long examples chapter is global warming, reviewed by Richard Lindzen.
How do you know that?
Smart,
You are part of the problem by describing energy using the moniker of heat. They are two separate things.
One can differentiate between thermal energy and heat. Two bodies interchange thermal energy, but the flow of heat between them is only in the direction from the warmer body to the colder one.
Of course this makes problems when you talk about heat content and similar things, but you can be consistent and avoid the ambiguity of natural language.
I thought the rabbit done died…. 🙂
I love CO2.
Well, the Earth would die without it. 1000ppm would be more comfortable.
You said it direct sunlight, climate models reduce the amount as much as possible to inflate trace gases (from less than a watt to 100’s of watts) and ignore the big things like the ocean (71% of earth), 78% nitrogen,21% oxygen emitting 98 watts and clouds (water droplets) 79 watts. As you go up temperature falls yet radiation increases above the clouds (does it slow temperature decrease, no). Once globally absorbed heat 242 (340-98) watts dissipates temperature stops falling. Radiative gases heat up (stratosphere) heating the thin air of 400g/ cubic meter another 150 watts is absorbed. Cooling above this layer occurs thanks to carbon dioxide. This process happens in the mesosphere. The laws of thermal dynamics states a cold object cannot heat a warm object. 278.3 kelvins 1.38 e-21/K x (86 watts every second and every meter) heats earth by 5.3°C. 287.8 kelvins 1.38 e-21/K (sunlight) x (254 every second and every meter) heats earth by 16.2°C.
We’re always told that a cooler object cannot increase the temperature of a warmer object but it can cause the warmer object to lose heat slower and thus increase its temperature via a new thermal equilibrium. This argument completely ignores two important things: the work that went into placing that cooler object there in the first place and the time dependent heat transfer between the two objects that occurs before the cooler object can increase the temperature of the warmer object via a slower rate of cooling.
If you have an object at thermal equilibrium in a vacuum (like a planet) and then place a cool gas around that object it will eventually find a new equilibrium temperature that is higher. However, the gas must first increase in temperature to the point where the gas molecules in conductive contact with the surface are at the same temperature as the surface – the cooler gas above it doesn’t simply back radiate IR to the surface and warms it instantly with the gas in contact at the surface still at a lower temperature.
Their argument is like saying you can decrease the rate at which your coffee cools by pouring it from a hot mug with relatively high radiative cooling into a freezing thermos with very lower radiative cooling. In order for the rate of cooling of the coffee to decrease, the coffee and thermos that are in thermal contact must first reach the same temperature.
This works the same way for a planet surface. The surface temperature will not be increased by feedback from the atmosphere when the gas in contact with the surface is cooler than the surface itself – the surface will always decrease in temperature when the air in contact with it is at a lower temperature and do so at a higher rate than if that object were in a vacuum. The surface is warmed or cooled via the atmosphere depending on whether the gas in contact with the surface is warmer or colder respectively, regardless of how much IR the sky is emitting. And the gas temperature in thermal contact with the surface is not dependent on radiative heat transfer (see my reply above linking Einstein, 1917), but rather conduction/convection. If radiative heat transfer controlled thermal equilibrium of the planet surface/atmosphere, then night time temperature inversions would be impossible.
The diatomic gases that comprise 98% of Earth’s atmosphere were not magically placed there like in a thought experiment, a lot of energy went into them to create the gas phase in the first place and they retain this energy in the form of latent heat. Once in the gas form it doesn’t rapidly release that energy via radiation and condense, but rather it primarily transfers energy via conduction/convection with solid or liquid surfaces and other gas molecules. Thus an atmosphere acts as a thermal capacitor for a planet regardless of its composition.
I implore Willis et al to read Einstein’s Quantum Theory of Radiation and these:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276048562_Scrutinizing_the_atmospheric_greenhouse_effect_and_its_climatic_impact
https://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161.pdf
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1012.0421.pdf
If the difference between the warm object and the cool object has the expected heat required from the external source. Then cooling isn’t being slowed down. Each year the surface heats in the summer as land absorbs more heat than ocean. Object warms up and cool object cools further. Only the external source (the sun) can produce this effect. Not the cool object assumed controlling temperature. As winter (land snow extends) surface cools and cool object warms. Paragraph 2 (two objects 5°C (Sun 340w), 5°C Earth (340 watts) equilibrium. Place a cool gases (99%) nitrogen & oxygen and they have to increase to be in equilibrium with earth and sun. And they do. But a trace gas 0.04% does not, remains cooler than the surface. The energy 0.136 watts and even a slow increase in the gas will only add a few 100ths of a watt. Last paragraph confused me as your confusing nitrogen and oxygen with water. Trace gases remain cold gases therefore cannot warm a warmer object. Water changes states as it absorbs heat, rises and cools to dew point. Releasing latent heat while condensing into water droplets. Only this 2-3km is where cooling slows (otherwise clouds cannot form if cooling was to rapid) but after 6km cooling speeds up (as moister decreases) so total atmosphere isn’t controlling surface. Only the sun as it moves to from a more heat absorbing hemisphere increasing earths temperature which the other cools and ice expands slowing earth’s increase. Trace gas has no control as composition is almost equal in both hemispheres.
If the difference between the warm object and the cool object has the expected heat required from the external source. Then cooling isn’t being slowed down. Each year the surface heats in the summer as land absorbs more heat than ocean. Object warms up and cool object cools further. Only the external source (the sun) can produce this effect. Not the cool object assumed controlling temperature. As winter (land snow extends) surface cools and cool object warms. Paragraph 2 (two objects 5°C (Sun 340w), 5°C Earth (340 watts) equilibrium. Place a cool gases (99%) nitrogen & oxygen and they have to increase to be in equilibrium with earth and sun. And they do. But a trace gas 0.04% does not, remains cooler than the surface. The energy 0.136 watts and even a slow increase in the gas will only add a few 100ths of a watt. Last paragraph confused me as your confusing nitrogen and oxygen with water. Trace gases remain cold gases therefore cannot warm a warmer object. Water changes states as it absorbs heat, rises and cools to dew point. Releasing latent heat while condensing into water droplets. Only this 2-3km is where cooling slows (otherwise clouds cannot form if cooling was to rapid) but after 6km cooling speeds up (as moister decreases) so total atmosphere isn’t controlling surface. Only the sun as it moves to from a more heat absorbing hemisphere increasing earths temperature which the other cools and ice expands slowing earth’s increase. Trace gas has no control as composition is almost equal in both hemispheres.
Actually, the cooler gas does simply back-radiate IR to the surface. It will instantly slow the rate of surface cooling, provided the gas is warmer than the temperature of the radiation the surface was previously interacting with (i.e., the 3 K background radiation).
The planetary surface always has a rate of net radiative heat loss. This is given by radiative power emitted minus radiative power absorbed.
In the absence of the atmosphere, only only “radiative power absorbed” is on the order of σT₃⁴ where T₃ = 3 K, so that this power is negligible.
A gas at any temperature higher than 3 K will increase the amount of radiation being absorbed by the planetary surface, and thereby slow its net rate of heat loss.
There is no need for any of the gas to reach the same temperature as the surface before this effect starts to come into play.
This is just plain false.
In general, whether the surface is heating or cooling relative to what would happen in a vacuum depends on a comparison of (a) convective cooling and (b) reduced radiative heat loss due to back-radiation.
When convection is happening, this will often be the dominant heat transfer mechanism. But, if the atmosphere warms to a point where there is a sub-adiabatic lapse rate, then convection will stop. Conduction to the air, without convection, is a rather weak heat-transfer mechanism. So, at this point, it’s easy for reduced radiative heat loss due to back-radiation to become the dominant thermodynamic effect, at this point.
True, but so what?
Why do you say that? I’m pretty sure that’s false.
I’m also not sure if it’s relevant (it depends on what you mean), insofar as thermal dynamics between the surface and the atmosphere are controlled by a dance between radiation and convection.
Why would it? It releases energy via radiation, but is also being warmed by radiation, and sometimes convection. On balance, these keep the atmosphere from condensing.
It transfers energy both via conduction/convection and radiation. Both modes matter.
The atmosphere does act as a thermal capacitor (insofar as air and water vapor have internal energy).
And, some components of the atmosphere interact radiatively.
Both things are true.
“unfortunately there is no shortage of people whose understanding of this issue is guided only by their politics or their religion. “
Are you describing yourself, Tom? Are you a member of The Church of the Holy Back Radiation?
“Are you describing yourself, Tom?”
No, but he has you totally nailed down!
How so, Ed Bo?
Maybe I missed Tom’s reply. Did you get one?
It’s hard fighting these Willis groupies.
“Willis groupies”??? How about you dial back on the personal attacks and deal with the issues … people here are individuals. Some agree with me, and some with you. Calling them “groupies” is a sign of weakness. It just shows you are trying to negate their arguments through a personal attack because you can’t attack their ideas.
Protip—hating on people is like taking poison and expecting your enemies to die. It destroys YOUR reputation, not theirs.
w.
Ed Bo is supporting you by insulting me. In my book that is the behaviour of a groupie.
If you wish to argue with Ed Bo’s ideas, quote them and do so.
Claiming that he is a “groupie” is a shabby underhanded ad hominem attack, and all it reveals is that you don’t have either the knowledge or the albondigas to dispute his ideas.
w.
Willis Eschenbach: Purveyor of thermodynamic sophistry.
Where is your evidence for all your claims about the warming properties of DWLR or back radiation or in fact the existence of the GHE?
You have zero, zilch, nada. I know it, you know it and every honest poster on this blog knows it.
The claim by Berkeley Lab concerning Feldman et al (2015) was
“First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earth’s Surface”
That’s it since 1988 when James Hansen stood before a Congressional Committee prophesying with accents terrible of dire combustion and confused events. And after an 11 year experiment they could not separate the effects of natural CO2 from anthropogenic CO2.
But you, Willis, seem to know better and you are well supported on this once superb website. Anyone who disagrees with you gets a negative uptick from the lukewarmers, even respected scientists and engineers who have contributed to WUWT for years.
You put out warnings, delete and snip if your arguments are shown to be wrong and sometimes I feel I am on the Skeptical Science blog run by arch warmista, John Cook.
Take your bullshit cargo cult science and as you rudely said to me a few days ago, stick it where the sun don’t shine.
You are a disgrace to open scientific discussion and as for albondigas, yours fell off years ago.
leitmotif, either you are unable to read or unable to follow a polite request. I said:
Come back when you muster up the nerve to do that, and we can discuss your objections.
w.
You don’t write a totally fact free article and expect people to “follow a polite request”.
You are a fanciful amateur who has been allowed to print what he wants on a major climate change website about things going around in his head.
I don’t need to muster up the nerve to tell you this; I just need to stop laughing long enough to be able to use my keyboard.
Do you have a huge block of ice in your house that exchanges energy with you and makes you warmer than you would have been without the huge block of ice?
You probably do.
Just delete what you don’t like, Willis. You usually do.
Oooh, leifie is butthurt! So leifie is doing what he’s best at—ignoring the facts, ignoring science, and spewing ugly personal attacks in all directions. Stand back, everyone, leifie is lying on the floor and having a tantrum!
So tell us, leifie … how many comments have I deleted on this thread?
What’s that? Speak up, I can’t hear you …
Yep. That’s right. None.
w.
Well done, Willis or should I call you Willie or Wilbur in the leifie childish mangling of my name?
You may be more familiar with lying on the floor and having tantrums, Wilbur, but as an adult it is alien to me.
I didn’t say you had deleted comments on this thread. You have been guilty of deleting comments on your previous threads, even in the last couple of weeks. Do you want me to to list them? It would be tedious and time-consuming as there are so many of them.
I said, “Willis Eschenbach: Purveyor of thermodynamic sophistry.
Where is your evidence for all your claims about the warming properties of DWLR or back radiation or in fact the existence of the GHE?
You have zero, zilch, nada. I know it, you know it and every honest poster on this blog knows it.
The claim by Berkeley Lab concerning Feldman et al (2015) was
“First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earth’s Surface”
That’s it since 1988 when James Hansen stood before a Congressional Committee prophesying with accents terrible of dire combustion and confused events. And after an 11 year experiment they could not separate the effects of natural CO2 from anthropogenic CO2.
But you, Willis, seem to know better and you are well supported on this once superb website. Anyone who disagrees with you gets a negative uptick from the lukewarmers, even respected scientists and engineers who have contributed to WUWT for years.”
You decided not to reply to my observations and chose a visceral, childish reply instead.
When are you going to back up your fanciful hypotheses with real world observational evidence, Willie?
Never I fear.
As they say, you are a busted flush, Wimpie.
leitmotif May 29, 2021 5:15 pm
Oooh, now leitmotif is really angry.
And no, I’m not mangling your name. I’m mangling the alias you hide behind.
Come back when you want to stop your insults and discuss the ideas. You say I “decided not to reply to [your] observations” … what observations? All you’ve done is call me names and make vague claims that I’m wrong.
OK, if you think I’m wrong, quote what I said that you think is wrong, and tell us why it’s wrong. Because your claims that e.g. I’m a “purveyor of climate sophistry” or a “fanciful amateur” are totally meaningless in a discussion about science.
w.
Ok, Wilbur, since you refuse to address my comments above let’s cut to the quick.
Wilbur, you are an idiot.
Is that a better way of replying to you? I think it is.
Btw, I think you suit Wilbur. He was the hapless owner in Mr Ed.
Have a warm night snuggled up to your huge block of ice. 🙂
Byeeeee!
“You decided not to reply to my observations and chose a visceral, childish reply instead.”
LOL. You mean like you did in your very first post in this subthread? Buddy, you set the tone. That you are so butthurt over the tone being given back to you is just too ironically funny. Your’ve reaped what you sown.
Geoff Sherrington has not got 1 upvote.
The votes is a combined total of the ups and downs, so you cannot know that.
Sorry, I meant surplus. Geoff may have some who agree with him but more that don’t. I’m obviously on the negative side. 🙂
leitmotif,
Can you give me an example of any comment of mine that some agreed with but more did not? In real life on WUWT, I have many, many upticks. I think this post today is the first where I can see a downtick. Geoff S
leitmotif,
Pop down to here:
Geoff Sherrington
Reply to
Frank from NoVA
May 29, 2021 5:18 pm
There is an uptick there.
There is also an explanation for the game I was playing, which I usually do not play. Geoff S
Ed Bo is insulting you? How? By redirecting your own insult of “Are you describing yourself, Tom?” back to it’s source. Pot stop calling the kettle black. (or to use another familiar phrase, when you live in a glass house, you shouldn’t throw stones).
Willis writes good stuff that’s interesting. Your writings don’t measure up to that. Can you put together a coherenet criticism of what he wrote about in the article?
He seems to have adopted the style of the warmistas when they talk to skeptics, and in fact to have perfected the most exaggerated version of it.
Say nothing, say it loudly and rudely, and say it often.
I honestly wonder if he knows how he comes off to anyone observing these conversations?
Gosh, another person who thinks that attacking me personally makes them look oh-so-smart and convinces people that their ideas are correct … bad news on that front.
Nicholas, my ideas are either right or wrong, REGARDLESS of my shoe size, my sex, my style, or my scholastic accomplishments. If you want to prove my ideas are wrong, there’s only one way to do it:
1) Quote exactly what I said.
2) Use logic, facts, math, or other scientific methods to demonstrate, not claim but demonstrate, that my claim is incorrect.
Your claim that I “say nothing” is risible. In the head post, I laid out a host of facts, claims, and ideas. In the comments, I’ve discussed a wide variety of subjects and answered questions and objections.
All the rest of it, all of you guys that are hating on me? Meaningless. Actually, it’s worse than meaningless, because when people start throwing mud at me, the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that they’re out of real ammunition …
Here’s a graphic showing the hierarchy of disagreement.
I discuss it here. Let me encourage you to move your discourse upwards on the pyramid.
w.
Mr. E,
After all that I have written here and elsewhere, why is it that I need to point out to you I was clearly talking about the guy who is insulting you?
Have you truly not ever noticed I have spent hundreds of thousands of words backing you up for literally years on end, including a large number of times in this and several recent posts of yours.
I even do so in the few cases where I have nothing to say one way of the other about the topic under discussion.
I know you do not like me, and so just assume the worst about me, reflexively.
That is your prerogative.
I do not talk about people badly who do not deserve it.
And I have never, ever, once, not a single time, talked badly about you, ever.
And I am not even gonna take it personally this time either.
I can count on one hand the number of times you have even spoken to me directly in a reply, and three of them were along the lines of this one.
As for the pyramid…
Have you not noticed that I post scads of evidence to back up what I assert?
When I criticize someone, I criticize what they say, and only return insults, never instigate them.
When I am wrong or mistaken, I say so and I apologize.
Very few others ever do, that I have seen.
I am at the top of the pyramid, and intend to stay there.
But I do wonder how it has escaped your attention that I have never hated on you even slightly, or that I was clearly talking about the person Ragnaar was replying to?
BTW, What I said about LM is true.
He says nothing, just issues drive by insults.
I never said he was wrong about anything, because he has not said anything to be wrong about.
He just says other people are wrong, and gives not even an argument, let alone anything backed up.
I really does kind of hurt my feelings that you imagined I insulted your shoe size, though, and all that other stuff.
But not because of what you said to me when you thought I was talking about you, but because it must mean you pay zero attention to anything I write.
I simply asked for evidence and I get none. I pointed out that the only paper ever written that claims that DWLR has been measured is Feldman et al (2015).
It is you Nicholas who is behaving like a warmista. You reject those who ask for evidence because the science is settled.
https://climateofsophistry.com/2021/05/19/green-plate-analyzed-and-demolished/
leitmotif
In addition to the continuous DWLR measurements done at each of the SURFRAD sites, and at the ARM sites, and the DWLR measurements at the array of TAO/TRITON buoys in the ocean, a very superficial search finds the following. There are literally hundreds more.
A Google search for “measurement downwelling longwave radiation -CERES -MODIS -model” finds over 13,000 hits. The same search on Google Scholar finds 713 journal studies.
The fact that you make the hilarious claim that there is only one paper on the subject is totally typical of your lack of depth of understanding of the issue.
w.
http://www.ibpsa.org/proceedings/BS2017/BS2017_569.pdf
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/83452.pdf
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020JD033590
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kaicun_Wang/publication/232772217_Evaluation_of_ASTER_and_MODIS_land_surface_temperature_and_emissivity_products_using_long-term_surface_longwave_radiation_observation_at_SURFRAD_sites/links/5a7fbab3a6fdcc0d4baa8337/Evaluation-of-ASTER-and-MODIS-land-surface-temperature-and-emissivity-products-using-long-term-surface-longwave-radiation-observation-at-SURFRAD-sites.pdf
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/132551676.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544214014029
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019JD030763
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07055900.2012.760441
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26185489
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.4975560
https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/atmchem/docs/DEPSCOR_progreport_9_13_07.pdf
https://1library.co/document/nq7xe0ry-atmospheric-downwelling-longwave-radiation-cloudless-overcast-conditions-measurements.html
https://www.arm.gov/publications/tech_reports/handbooks/sirs_handbook.doc
http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0187-62362014000300007
Mc,
By some weird way,
you just described in that above comment, exactly the position the one that got upset, stands at firmly… in the proposition of this blog post article.
cheers
Nicholas said:
You need to point it out to me because YOU DIDN’T QUOTE WHAT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT, and so I came to the wrong conclusion.
Thanks for clarifying it, and I do appreciate your support, but don’t bust me because you can’t be bothered to make it clear who and what you are referring to.
My best to you,
w.
Wilbur sticks his chest out.
Bust you?
Look what you said to me.
I was agreeing with and responding to someone who was criticizing LM, and it never even crossed my mind that anyone might be unclear to whom I was referring.
You might have asked who I was referring to.
It was my mistake, not yours.
When I frist read your reply, I thought you were going after Willis. Then you explained you were not. The issue may be the people who post things like back radiation is not real. Or since the CO2 varies by a lot each year, it’s not our fault. It can be frustrating to always have them around. I think it a good idea to exclude (or push away) the nut jobs even when they are on our side. The same as expecting the Left to condemn looting minority owned businesses.
Just pointing out that Willis has no evidence to support his rantings.
Look at my post a few minutes ago about the sophistry of his steel greenhouse debacle.
I believe it might be a confusion about what comprises the “surface”.
Could it be the case that the Non-greenhouse gases – heated by conduction – might be confounding the issue?
What I find odd about this debate is that the reality is actually more nuanced than it first appears. The devil is in the detail and if you look closely at the problem – there is probably some ground that would have to be conceded by both sides.
I don’t believe “Back Radiation” alone provides a proper account of the real situation.
To be clear, radiation moves at the speed of light and when we are discussing the weather, the climate or air temperature we are dealing with energy exchanges at the far lower speeds of conduction and convection!
A hot body in a vacuum will cool slower than one in an atmosphere*.
Q: “Why is it so?”
A: It is because conduction exchanges heat more efficiently than radiation.
This fast radiation / slow heat loss v slower conduction / faster heat loss is the heart of the issue in my opinion.
Even without a GHG the atmosphere in contact with the surface will move heat quicker than radiation can move that same amount of energy. But now this heated air – nitrogen and oxygen, transparent to both in and out-going radiation – can no longer escape to space at the speed of light but its ability to transfer that heat via direct contact is more efficient than the radiation – “Back” or otherwise – that it might supply!
*Where the gas is at a lower temperature than the body and same volume as the vacuum given at least 1 atm
Photons move at the speed of light, but they energy they convey around the atmosphere does not instantly go from one place to another, and mostly does not transfer from Earth to space very fast.
Nothing like speed of light fast, that is for sure.
Even rapid cooling in very dry and cloudless air after sunset, is like five to ten degrees F or so an hour. Maybe a little faster under ideal radiational cooling conditions.
If it did, one second after the Sun set, we would be at the nighttime low.
The reason is simple: The atmosphere is transparent to relatively small bands in the part of the IR spectrum at which things at Earthly temps radiate.
Energy makes it’s way to space in a series of steps controlled by the mean free path length, rates of collisions between molecules, and some other parameters that are decidedly less rapid that the speed of light.
Having said that, CO2 can only add a little time to how long it takes for energy to makes it’s way out.
And besides for that, there are other factors that have a far larger influence.
How can I be sure?
Because the whole Earth can warm up or cool down in a matter of months even as CO2 is increasing apace, and that seems to have changed not at all compared to the past, recent and distant past at every interval examined.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_April_2021_v6.jpg
Between the jackass skeptics and the jackass warmistas, it seems a rather small number of people are maintaining a hold on reality and what counts as good science.
Bringing the speed of light into this discussion confuses matters, in that it’s referencing a type of “speed” that is not what is meant when one talks about how “fast” things cool.
What is important in these discussions is really thermal conductance — how much heat transfer occurs per degree of temperature difference? “Faster” cooling corresponds to higher thermal conductance.
GHG reduce the radiative thermal conductance between a planetary surface and space.
Convection typically has higher thermal conductance than radiative heat transfer does, in situations where convection is happening—which is not all the time in an atmosphere.
Conduction in air, in the absence of convection, has even lower thermal conductance than radiative heat transfer.
Your answer is not always valid. It depends on the composition and temperature of the atmosphere.
For a transparent atmosphere, cooling will initially be faster with an atmosphere, because radiative heat loss will be unchanged, and there will be additional cooling via heat transfer to the atmosphere. However, once the atmosphere equalizes temperature with the surface, it will not provide any more cooling. The surface will loose heat at the same rate that it would in a vacuum. The transparent atmosphere will have no impact on the final equilibrium temperature of a planetary surface (except insofar as the atmosphere helps equalize temperatures around the planet).
For an atmosphere with GHG, there will be a reduction of radiative heat loss from the surface. There will also be cooling via conduction/convection heat transfer to the atmosphere. The net effect depends on working through the details of the sizes of these effects compare. In equilibrium, the GHG atmosphere tends to lead to a warmer surface.
Convection does occur most of the time. Not even clouds stop it. Less at night but still there. It is controlled by conduction from the surface and collisions with GHG molecules like H2O and CO2. Only if there is a temperature inversion, will convection be limited to the lower troposphere but it still exists.
Convection occurs where potential temperature is not increasing with altitude. However, at higher latitudes, potential temperature is generally increasing, i.e., on average, there is an inversion.
There is also, of course, a permanent inversion in the stratosphere.
Yes, convection is common in the troposphere, but it’s not happening in a major way everywhere or always.
Willis, nor any other luke-warmer or climate cultist for that matter, has properly addressed the quantum theory of radiation. Has anyone even bothered to read it?
http://web.ihep.su/dbserv/compas/src/einstein17/eng.pdf
LWIR from the surface is absorbed by IR active gases but also causes stimulated emission and thus cools the atmospheric IR active gases just as often as it warms them. None of this claims that LW spontaneous emission from the atmosphere doesn’t exist or that it isn’t absorbed by the surface – the same red herring arguments that keep appearing in these posts – it claims that LW from the surface doesn’t simply warm the atmosphere which in turn warms the surface via back radiation.
The GHG back radiation hypothesis is simple pseudoscience with no bearing in reality. This has been known since the days of Maxwell and solidified in 1917 when Einstein wrote quantum theory of radiation.
Robert W Turner May 29, 2021 7:45 am
As the poet said:
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Drink deeply, or touch not that Pierian spring.
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Robert, you are 100% right that stimulated emission exists. It’s why we have photocells and solar cells. Visible light energy knocks electrons loose from substances like germanium and creates electricity.
Ever wonder why we don’t have the same thing for thermal longwave?
The answer is simple. Thermal longwave simply doesn’t contain enough energy to knock an electron loose from any known substance. Its simply too weak. The energy associated with radiation is proportional to frequency and inversely proportional to wavelength. Thus, electromagnetic waves with shorter wavelengths have more energy … and LWIR waves have less energy.
So I fear that your claim, that “LWIR from the surface is absorbed by IR active gases but also causes stimulated emission”, is not true at all. LWIR simply doesn’t contain enough energy to do that.
Best regards,
w.
Willis, that is simply not true. I learn’t in high school years ago that the photoelectric effect is frequency dependant; intensity of energy makes no difference!
You are also wrong because we have any number of Infrared Detectors, IR CCDs use photoconductive material composed of various elements (e.g. Si) that respond to very low energy levels (1.0 eV, 1.24μm). These rely on the photoelectric effect using various “substances”:
Your overarching argument might be correct but the way you put it here is wrong. And that is very important in a scientific debate.
cheers,
Scott
Stimulated emission source does not need to be ionizing energy. All incident photons cause it if the momentums of the photon and gas molecule are of opposite sign. Otherwise the law of conservation of momentum would be violated.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0020089193900286
I’m pretty sure Einstein even stated that at all photons must cause this effect.
You’re right that stimulated emission relates to all quantum transitions, not just those associated with ionization or excitation of electrons.
However, you have misinterpreted the significance of this.
RT’s claims are entirely wrong, but not for the reason that you suggest.
You’re right that “[Photons of] Thermal longwave simply [don’t] contain enough energy to knock an electron loose from any known substance.” But, that’s irrelevant to the argument about stimulated emission.
Einstein’s quantum theory of radiation applies to all interactions between matter and radiation. It doesn’t matter if that interaction involves electrons being excited, or some other type of energetic excitation.
Carbon dioxide, for example, absorbs and emits radiation with a wavelength of 15 microns because radiation is interacting with a quantum transition into a flexing vibration mode of the molecule. It’s a mechanical vibration; no electronic state transition is involved. But, this is still a quantum transition, and Einstein’s quantum theory of radiation still applies.
Carbon dioxide and other IR-absorbing gases do experience both stimulated and spontaneous emission, as is the case for any other interaction between matter and radiation.
However, under the conditions that apply in the atmosphere (i.e, for gases at a finite positive temperature) the rate of IR absorption will always exceed the rate of IR stimulated emission, and always leads to net warming of the IR-absorbing gas.
Thus, RT is wrong, though not for the reason you thought.
Lukewarmers give warmers the credibility they do not deserve.
You can use your own definition of lukewarmer, but it changes nothing.
Warmistas are just like you, or you like them…anyone who does not agree with everything they preach must be cast down into the depths of Hell.
More and more, it is jackasses like you that are giving them a leg up they do not need.
Oh Nicholas, you think I use the term lukewarmer because I am a warmista?
Wow! You claim to know my type but you do not know I am the opposite of a warmista?
What a numpty you are.
My constant mantra on here is, “lukewarmists give warmists the credibility they don’t deserve.”
Think before you leap, Nicholas.
For all your insults about other people’s intelligence, you’ve just shown that you lack the intelligence to understand what you read. Nicholas did not say you were a warmista, he said that warmista are just like you (or you just like them) and then gave an example of how they are just like you. IE you and they exhibit the same bad behaviors.
I am very aware of your position.
I am criticizing your inability to refrain from insulting and demeaning those you disagree with.
I am trying to keep my criticisms very specific.
I am not calling you names, or saying you are a bad person, or lack intelligence.
I am saying you are not even trying to back up what you say with any specific information, and therefore you are adding all heat and no light with your commentary.
I know that you can do better, which is what I am trying to get you do to.
I am quite familiar with Einstein’s theory of radiation. I was trained as a laser physicist. Understanding lasers is dependent on understanding Einstein’s theory of radiation.
I’m also aware of treatments of the Greenhouse Effect which start with Einstein’s theory of radiation and derive everything from Einstein’s theory as the starting point. There is no inconsistency.
Yes, stimulated emission occurs. No, it does NOT mean that “LWIR from the surface… cools IR active gases just as often as it warms them.”
The ratio of cooling to warming via incident IR radiation is determined by the population ratios of more and less energetic quantum states. Higher energy quantum states are always less populated (because they are populated in accordance with the Boltzmann distribution).
Consequently, in the atmosphere there is always more absorption than stimulated emission, and always a net warming effect.
You keep citing Einstein’s work, but you apparently have not understood it.
Your analysis is wrong.
Tom, you’ve been proven right. Just look at some of the moronic & hateful comments from leaf-brain (leitmotif) below. He actual cited Eli Rabbet, the rabbit who done run yrs ago…..
The UK is milder in winter if there is water in the atmosphere and does not have clear skies, while we lose some solar radiation in winter there is not so much of that and retaining surface radiation is more important.
That’s due to the latent heat of the water vapor and the real greenhouse effect of clouds – nothing to do with “back radiation” from WV.
Wrong.
You are wrong.
Wrong.
Hey if you simply say “wrong” enough times maybe you’ll be right.
No, saying it does not make any proposition true, and never will.
So when someone makes claims without backing them up, it seems a valid refutation to simply state the opposite, using the same principle of argumentation as the person I am disagreeing with.
Nicholas you are doing it wrong. You have to call him wrong while also insulting his intelligence and engaging in other childish name calling. 😉
“Extra” downwelling energy requires “extra” upwelling energy which requires the surface to radiate BB.
NONE of the above actually exists.
The fact that you ignore measured quantities causes me to question your reasoning abilities, Nick. Within the accuracy of the measuring devices, these quantities have been measured for decades. Exactly what is it you deny the existence of?
The IR measurements are incorrect because they assume the surface radiates as a BB ala cold fusion.
Circular orbits, plant Vulcan, luminiferous ether, phlogiston, caloric, etc. were all “measured” – incorrectly.
1) the earth is cooler w atmos not warmer.
2) GHGs need “extra” energy
3) BB upwelling can’t be it.
4) no RGHE.
Please tell us the Earth’s emissivity relative to a BB. How close is it to a BB’s? Does it in any way affect the answers presented by Willis?
Your four items are nonsense. Please listen to actual skeptical scientists/physicists that work on these issues. You don’t know what you are talking about.
Please tell us the emissivity of CO2 that is emitting this IR being measured?
I don’t know. Has anybody measured the emissivity of a single molecule?
Why?
Serious question.
Because this warming is being blamed on CO2. The control knob! If it has no emissivity then it cannot be the issue.
Hoyt Hottel and others have done experiments that show the emissivity of CO2 is almost zero below 33 C. If true then where is the IR the charts WE posted come from?
Also if all this IR is running around how is it possible to take a picture with an IR camera? Or why don’t we have a picture of all this energy?
So what do you or Dave Fair say is the emissivity of CO2?
[your browser is autofilling an incorrectly spelled email address. that’s why every post has been moderated lately. i have to go in an correct the spelling each time~ctm]
mkelly, the experiments you cite on CO2 & air emissivity with an optical path length on the order of a furnace flue are not useful for a planetary atmosphere’s much longer CO2 & air emissivity optical path length.
I agree with Dave Fair…those four items are incoherent nonsense.
And I wish it was not necessary to say such things about what someone else has said.
How convenient.
Unless the measurements show what you wish to believe, then the measurements are wrong.
Nick, I assure you that the upwelling radiation measurements do NOT assume that the earth is a blackbody. The measurements are just that—measurements.
However, the error if you were to assume that the earth is a blackbody is small, because the emissivity of most natural surfaces is ~ 0.96 – 0.98.
w.
Willis,
A pyrgeometer works on the same principle as a thermister. All you’re MEASURING is Net IR. Downwelling IR is DERIVED via philosphy and math.
It’s incorrect and inappropriate to say Downwelling IR is MEASURED by SURFRAD.
Zoe, always good to hear from you.
Next, if a pyrgeometer is only measuring “Net IR”, please explain why every SURFRAD station has a Downwelling Pyrgeometer and an Upwelling Pyrgeometer.
And yes, just as with most modern measuring instruments, the raw pyrgeometer instrument values have to be mathematically transformed to get the underlying values of interest … and?
Does this mean that radio telescopes and FLIR and digital car speedometers and IR thermometers and radars and the thermistor that shows your oven temperature should all be thrown in the trash because the input is mathematically transformed into an output value of interest?
Finally, if the Goodwin Creek pyrgeometers are not measuring IR as you claim, why do their values agree so well with the CERES values? Coincidence? Conspiracy?
My best to you,
w.
Willis,
The orientation of a pyrgeometer doesn’t matter. The whole device is essentially just two thermometers.
You can place a hot object in direct physical contact, and ruin the “Downwelling IR”. You won’t be measuring IR at all.
CERES is definitely not measuring Downwelling IR. Satellites can’t detect IR moving AWAY from it. That’s a very big tell that it’s derived.
Best regards -Z
Not even close to true. From the Wiki overview:
A pyrgeometer consists of the following major components:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrgeometer
Great, but you missed:
“It measures the resistance/voltage changes in a material that is sensitive to the NET energy transfer by radiation that occurs between itself and its surroundings (which can be either in or out)”
NET.
Either in or out. But if you believe in Downwelling IR, then there is only two INS, along with UPLW.
Two Ins sounds strange to me. I only believe in heat flow.
You cannot say solar is solely shortwave. Downwelling is the infrared part of solar. This is why a car dashboard can reach 70°C. So solar is 70C going through -63C atmosphere the surface will heat by 7°C 348 watts.
Willis,
Let’s say you have a planet (no sun) that is experiencing surface cooling at 400 W/m^2.
You cover the entire planet with pyrgeometers.
Now, as you claim, the conductive flux must equal the outgoing radiation flux.
So you get 200 W/m^2 conductive and 200 W/m^2 radiative. The bottom is still obviously at a temperature consistent with 400 W/m^2.
The NET flux thru the pyrgeometer is the conductive flux, or 200 W/m^2.
According to your theory, there is 200 W/m^2 of Downwelling IR.
Question: Given that there is nothing but space above the pyrgeometer … where is this downwelling radiation coming from?
I would really like to know!
Thank you, -Z
Reminder: To me it seems like Downwelling IR is just Upwelling-from-the-instrument IR, not to be confused with Upwelling-to-the-instrument IR (Surface OLWR).
Zoe Phin May 28, 2021 11:38 pm
Zoe, there is a reason I ask people to QUOTE MY EXACT WORDS. I have not used the term “conductive flux” in this thread anywhere. In fact, I also haven’t used the word “conductive” in this thread … so I fear I have no clue what you are talking about, and your statement about what I “claim” is simply not true at all.
Next I ask again … if the Goodwin Creek scientists are so incredibly stupid that they’re just measuring the instrument itself instead of downwelling radiation, despite the fact that their instruments are routinely calibrated once a year, why do their results agree so well with the CERES results? Coincidence? Conspiracy? Cheating?
I’m sorry, but I’m simply astounded by the fact that you can seriously believe that hundreds of scientists all over the world think they are measuring downwelling and upwelling IR but they’re actually measuring the instrument itself …
… really? That makes sense to you???
And nobody on the planet but you ever noticed this? The folks who invented the pyrgeometer didn’t catch this? The people calibrating the pyrgeometers against known IR sources haven’t figured this out? Are you secretly some kind of pyrgeometer expert and never mentioned it?
Here’s how a pyrgeometer works. Nothing like what you claim.
w.
Willis,
But can you please entertain what I said? What would pyrgeometers measure in the scenario I described?
How about a pyrgeometer on a hot pan?
I need falsification, not dismissal and appeal to nomenclature.
Thank you
Zoe the main problem with Willis rationale is that it evolves into a circular reasoning at some point.
Willis does a good job with all his knowledge and math;
all this derived calculations based on measurements,
these averages about the earth’s surface,
which mostly is ocean,
the most thermodynamicilly active part…
and still Willis makes a stark and pompous statement conclusion relying on boreholes data.
At least the AGWers when addressing the “missing” energy they still stay with the Oceans.
cheers
whiten May 29, 2021 5:43 am
1) My post was about the difference in downwelling solar and upwelling IR at GOODWIN CREEK, MISSISSIPPI. So no, Whiten I did not discuss geothermal heat flow in the ocean. See if you can reason out why.
2) You call some unidentified “statement” of mine “stark and pompous”. Please. At least have the balls to QUOTE THE STATEMENT you are raving about.
3) If you think a statement of mine is wrong, calling it “stark and pompous” is meaningless. Quote it and explain to us why it is wrong, using logic, math, and observations. It’s called the “scientific method”. Google it.
w.
Yes your post is about whatever radiation mate, but that did not stop you to hand wave geothermal,
in the most silly way possible.
As I said you suffer from circular reasoning.
Yes genius, you did not discuss geothermal in the oceans, as boreholes happen to be non oceanic… but still you dismissed geothermal all together with a hand waving… and declared the thing a mystery.
“2) You call some unidentified “statement” of mine “stark and pompous.”
That was me being kind.
As I have said before this, doubling down on Occam’s razor is ugly.
There is only two main options, either Radiative or Geothermal, or a combination of both where radiations do not hold the Lion share.
No any room for an option of mystery there to be considered… unless one trying a sell a plot of land on Mars.
cheers
Whiten,
Are you internetting while sh!tfaced drunk again?
Or is it hard drugs this time?
Man,
You keep doing this weird thingy,
you will keep upsetting EW even more.
🙂
Never done drugs, or how you call it, hard drugs…
and tending to keep it that way.
Please, for goodness sake don’t like me, even a little bit, when me internetting sh!tfaced drunk.
🤪
cheers
Zoe, you are asking me about a statement I never made about something that you call “conductive flux”. I have no idea what it is you are calling “conductive flux” so I fear I cannot answer.
As to a “pyrometer on a hot pan”, that’s like asking “what would an IR thermometer on a hot pan measure”? To which I can only say “Depends …”.
w.
OK. You are suggesting pyrgeometers are the only non-conductive objects in the universe?
On a hot pan, on a hot surface, with no atmosphere. Surface emits 400 W/m^2.
You can choose other parameters. I will accept them. You can even ditch the pan. Let’s see some math!
* kiss on the cheek *
Go!
Refusal is an admission!
Zoe,
That guy has no understanding of conductivity,
whatsoever
cheers.
I do love folks who think that what is important is not facts, evidence, logic or citations. What matters is their opinion.
w.
The product instructions assumes CO2 is above -40°C and that their is no infrared part from the sun. Both wrong. The infrared part of the sun is 527 watts. And CO2 is -80°C. I’ve worked out the rate of increase (temperature with solar irradiance). Temperature depends on the speed of molecules. All molecules emit IR or collide with this pyrgeometer and IR is coming from only 1.5 km level. CO2 is only 0.136w-m². Water vapor will only by 16 grams per 1200 grams (5 watts). Conclusion air emitted IR from 1.5km is your downwelling longwave radiation.
This is nonsense, there is no net flux through a pyrgeometer, the black thermopile is designed to absorb everything passing through the dome.
Did you even read the wikipedia page you linked?
If net flux = 0, then Ein = Eout, i.e.:
UPLW = “DWLW”
Notice the word “out”?
“The pyrgeometer’s thermopile detects the net radiation balance between the incoming and outgoing long wave radiation flux and converts it to a voltage according to the equation below..”
But Willis’ et al’s idea is that there is only two inputs. There is no output at all. The two inputs are: UpLW and DownLW.
The “outgoing” is what the instrument itself radiates; there is only one input. This why it includes a temperature sensor.
You said it yourself: There is only ONE input (Surface Upwelling IR)
Thank you for belaboring the obvious:
You call this outgoing radiation “Downwelling IR”. What is DOWNwelling about it?
1) The rear of a pryrgeometer is metallic and no radiation can reach the thermopile sensor through it; all of the detected radiation can only come through the silicon dome.
2) With the instrument horizontal, and the dome oriented toward the sky, it measures radiation from the sky ONLY. This radiation is mostly moving toward the ground, thus it is called DOWNWELLING.
3) Turning a pyrgeometer upsidedown with the dome is oriented toward the ground, it is then detecting radiation from the ground, which is called UPWELLING.
4) The SURFRAD experiments have TWO pyrgeometers each, one pointing to the sky, and the other to the ground. This is how both upwelling and downwelling radiation is measured.
¿Comprende?
Why are you trying to confuse the issue by invoking two pyrgeometers?
Let’s focus on one: the one measuring “DLWR”.
Those measurements show that there is always a NEGATIVE! NET Flux. The CASE temperature is always HOTTER than the dome. SURFRAD reports the case&dome T for both UP and DOWN pyrgeometers.
Do you fancy that DWLR causes the bottom to be hotter than the top because of passing through a thermopile?
The REAL energy input is the HOTTER bottom, not the colder top!
There is no DWLR.
You can’t take cold, subtract a negative net flux, and produce hot. But that’s what you philosophically do.
Forget the atmosphere. Just have a pyrgeometer in space with the bottom pointed at the sun.
A conductive flux will from “bottom” to “top”. There will be a decreasing T gradient from “bottom” to “top”
The outgoing radiation at the “top” is what you call DWLR!
You get it?
So no, no su comprende.
There is very little solar radiation at wavelengths greater than 4um.
Zoe, are you stupid or just arrogant? QUOTE MY EXACT WORDS!!!! Stop with the bullshit about “Willis’ et al’s idea is” … I ask people to quote what I said because folks like you twist the hell out of my words for your own purposes. Stop it.
w.
I don’t want to argue about arguing.
Remember that conductive cubic meter block in space thought experiment?
Replace that block with a pyrgeometer.
My argument is that DWLR is just cold-side outgoing radiation. But here it becomes obvious because there is no atmosphere to produce this DWLR.
Do you disagree or not? Why?
That’s all I want from you.
Sorry to get you upset. -Zoe
Zoe, your argument boils down to a claim that the people who invented the pyrgeometer, the people who manufacture the pyrgeometers, the people who routinely calibrate them so that their readings are equal to known IR sources, and the hundreds of scientists around the globe using pyrgeometers to measure upwelling and downwelling radiation are all so abysmally stupid that they don’t realize that they are not measuring what they think they are measuring.
Instead, according to you, they’re just measuring the temperature of the case or the temperature of the surroundings or the “cold-side outgoing radiation” or somesuch.
If you wish to show that that outrageous and frankly ludicrous claim is true, you’ll need a whole lot more than a thought experiment …
My best to you,
w.
My argument boils down to what a thermometer is and what a thermopile detects.
“A thermopile is an electronic device that converts thermal energy into electrical energy.[1] It is composed of several thermocouples connected usually in series or, less commonly, in parallel. Such a device works on the principle of the thermoelectric effect, i.e., generating a voltage when its dissimilar metals (thermocouples) are exposed to TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCE.” -wiki
A pyrgeometer measures absolute T at one location (leveled with bottom of thermopile) and delta-T between two locations: bottom and top of thermopile.
You know a pyrgeometer in space, powered by the sun on one side, with empty space on the other will have both a T at some location, and delta-T between two locations – you proved this yourself!
All you have is T and dT, the rest is philosophical interpretation.
My interpretation considers heat flow – energy moving from where there is more to where there is less.
I’ll repeat: All you have is T and dT.
Outgoing cold-side radiation, in this example, IS what you would call DWLR.
You have no choice. You’ve philosphically eliminated conduction thru thermopile. Your only explanation can be empty space radiating to top of thermopile (beyond 2.7K). Which is absurd.
Do you disagree?
Only on the planet you inhabit.
Good day.
“Only on the planet you inhabit.”
You should read your own wiki link. It tells you right there, under “components”. lol
““Only on the planet you inhabit.”
You should read your own wiki link. It tells you right there, under “components”. lol”
I do not seem to be able to find the part where it instructs the reader of the article to digest the explanation, and ruminate on it until it spews back out of the brain as crazy talk.
Can you please specify where it told you to do that?
I cannot find the section where inane sophistry is described either.
Zoe,
As usual, you are not convincing anyone, but you sure are annoying while you are not doing that.
I have to think this is no accident.
No woman is even a little annoying by accident, it is always always always on purpose and for a contrived purpose.
So why not just tell us all why you wish to annoy everyone with arguments that are not even arguments, but rather just word salad?
Please do tell.
Denying you are doing it is an admission that you are.
Ridicule is a sign of concession.
Solve the pyrgeometer in space problem yourself and you will see.
All matter emit radiation even nitrogen and oxygen. There is the Hadley cell, a circulation of air from the tropics where at the mid tropics (Mississippi) air descends. IR is coming from air at 1.5km.
I think it is the fact that the sensor is aimed upwards, that allows one to call it, correctly, “downwelling”.
This is apparently a difficult concept for some to grasp.
For what it’s worth, Zoe claims that the mean emissivity of Earth’s surface has been measured to be 0.94.
Cold Fusion has nothing to do with BB radiation. No one ever claimed that it did. You made that up. Besides, you should know that cold fusion is fake but BB radiation is real.
Cold fusion was a huge assumption/naming mistake. Turns out the Naval Research Labs were able to prove the phenomenon is real, but not readily reproducible. The reasons why, and the actual Widom-Larsen theory weak force explanation, having nothing to with strong force fusion, are covered in a chapter of The Arts of Truth.
Not only did the Naval Research Labs prove the observations of “excess heat”, the Electric Power Research Institute has a set of reports on “Anomalous effects in Deuterated Metals” detailing their $5,000,000 invested in reproducing the “Pons and Fleischmann” effect with excruciatingly accurate calorimetry. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA315020.pdf
LENR now up to TLR4. See Lewis Larsen co-author of the
Widom Larsen Theory of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions
Widom-Larsen Theory Papers, Tutorial, and Critiques (newenergytimes.com)
See Larsen’s presentations on LENR at
https://www.slideshare.net/lewisglarsen
Lewis Larsen CEO Lattice Energy Inc. on LinkedIn
Lewis Larsen | LinkedIn
and at
Lewis Larsen ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lewis-Larsen
I will pile on, because of my recent Koonin inspired post advocating ridicule. Here come some.
Circular orbits were assumed until Keplers careful measurements proved them elliptical and Newton then explained why.
Phlogiston was assumed until Lavoisier observations explained chemical combustion.
luminous aether was assumed until the Michelson Morley experiment proved it did not exist.
And so on.
You assume GHE does not produce backradiation, when observations prove that it not only does but must from first principles. Tyndall showed experimentally in 1859 that water vapor and CO2 were ‘greenhouse’ (IR coupled) gasses, while oxygen and nitrogen were not. And for his day, using very good experimental technique. Read his two papers? I have. You should.
So your above stated belief that the atmosphere makes Earth cooler, not warmer, is BS. Without a GHE atmosphere (mainly water vapor) the Earth would average about -18C and you would not exist to spout such nonsense.
The IR is coming from nitrogen and oxygen. It is a lie that says they do not emit IR. It is also a lie that CO2 absorbs between wavelengths 8-14µm earths incoming solar longwave infrared and outgoing radiation band.
Nonsense.
The facts that you’re disputing were established long before controversy about climate arose.
There are engineering fields where it’s important to measure and understand these issues to make industrial processes work correctly. They rely on the realities that you allege are “lies”, and wouldn’t work properly if you were right.
Nick,
You brought up everything but the answer to the question.
First you ascribe assumptions made by others that are not in evidence, then say the assumption is incorrect without saying why, then bring up cold fusion (huh!?).
Then you mention a bunch of things that have zero to do with any topic at hand.
Then you list some things which are dubious at best.
1) Comparing Earth to the Moon, there are parts that are warmer and parts that are colder.
The surface of the Moon gets both hotter and colder, by far, than any part of the Earth does.
2)It is hard to know what you are saying here without making some inferences, but again it seems you are basically making a false attribution.
It is not a question of extra energy, but how energy bounces around between when it enters and when it leaves the Earth’s atmosphere.
And there is plenty of bouncing.
3)Can’t be what? Why not? Because “sez you?”
Just asking.
4)So are you asserting that the gasses that are described as “radiative gasses” have no such physical property?
“the earth is cooler w atmos not warmer.”
What does that mean?
That without an atmosphere Earth would be like the Moon and so warmer?
This too hard to translate into reality as to be reasoned with.
They may be measured quantities but they are presented incorrectly. The 97.1 is solar not greenhouse gases. Solar has a visible part and a infrared part. The cold atmosphere cools the high energy from the sun, enough so we can feel it and not be harmed by it. Heat from a oven is longwave, light from the flame is shortwave. Earth is 65% covered in cloud and 11% covered in ice. So the whole 340 heats the planet not 163 w. 397 is mid latitude in June. Not global at any point in time. August globally reaches 365 watts. Lack of stations in the polar regions makes mid-latitude dominate how high the average is set. Lower average means no greenhouse effect. 25 above 340 can be explained by way of land, as this extra heat occurs when sun is over northern hemisphere.
Nick, the simplest way to address your first sentence is to note that there is NO “extra” downwelling energy . . . there is only downwelling energy from the atmosphere that provides the energy to make the total radiation budget balance, as Willis has irrefutably shown quantitatively.
Thus, there is no such thing as “extra” upwelling energy. There is only upwelling LWIR energy radiated from Earth’s surface (as Willis correctly notes, accounting in the balance for “the net of the sensible and latent heat lost gained and lost by the atmosphere via convection and conduction”). Energy can only escape from Earth via radiation (in this regard, let’s not quibble about the insignificant amount of energy carried away by light molecular weight gases that “boil off” into the vacuum of space).
I can balance a check book.
Can you?
Nick,
397 watts worth of photons up, 334 watts worth photons down, for an amount of 63 watts net HEAT from the warm ground to the cool sky. Its just not that hard to see that everything balances.
GAD,
Why does the Moon not get hotter and hotter, because it has no GHG which you say are the only way to send heat to space? Geoff S
If you have to lie about what the other person’s argument is, then you might as well just go ahead and admit that you know you can’t win on the facts.
MarkW,
So, what is the answer to my question? Geoff S
Geoff,
I have read what Gordon said over and over again.
He said, “…energy radiated from Earth’s surface…”
And, “Energy can only escape from Earth via radiation…”
He only used the word “heat” once, as part of the phrase “latent heat”, as far as I can see.
He clearly said energy is radiated from the surface.
Which is exactly what happens on the Moon, only there it is uncomplicated by any surrounding gasses to speak of (although there there are likely some completely inconsequential gas molecules floating around up there).
You have to read what people actually say.
Radiation to space does not depend on GHGs alone. The Earth system in its totality radiates LW to space. For example, a certain amount of Earth’s LW radiation goes directly to space, avoiding interference from the atmosphere. Are you purposefully obtuse, Geoff?
Geoff,
I have read what Gordon said over and over again.
He said, “…energy radiated from Earth’s surface…”
And, “Energy can only escape from Earth via radiation…”
He only used the word “heat” once, as part of the phrase “latent heat”, as far as I can see.
He clearly said energy is radiated from the surface.
Which is exactly what happens on the Moon, only there it is uncomplicated by any surrounding gasses to speak of (although there there are likely some completely inconsequential gas molecules floating around up there).
You have to read what people actually say.
NM,
That was my poor way to stress that many times I have seen statements that greenhouse gases high in the atmosphere are the way that radiation goes to space and hence there is cooling.Some evn claim that an atmosphere without GHG is unable to radiate and so no GHG means runaway heat (or, for a few authors, runaway cooling).
I was trying to get more accuracy into the balance of the several processes that seem to be involved in GHG theory. Of course I know that the Moon surface gives off light. We can see it at night, so it must.Geoff S
Geoff posted: “Of course I know that the Moon surface gives off light. We can see it at night, so it must.”
What you see as light coming from the lunar surface is reflected visible light energy that originated from the Sun. The radiation emitted from lunar surface due to its temperature at any given time is long wavelength infrared, when cannot be detected by the human eye.
If the Moon’s temperature was the source of the light “given off” by the Moon, there would be no lunar phases.
This is a very important point which I have raised elsewhere on the thread.
The daytime maximum temperature of the sun is 390K.
This produces an outgoing LWIR of 1292W/m2 according to Mr Eschenbach’s Formula below.
It averages during the Lunar Day 380K giving 1064W/m2
Where in the Earth’s Energy Budget does this 1198W/m2 or 1064W/m2 appear?
And where does it appear in the models.
Also where does the earth’s 397W/m2 appear in the calculation of the Moon’s surface temperature?
Sorry The daytime maximum temperature of the Moon is 390K.
Comparing the power flux balance of the Moon to that of the Earth is basically a waste of time. (Note: firstly, it is a fundamental mistake to call it an energy balance when expressing the units being exchanged to comprise the “balance” in terms of W/m^2)
1) The Moon has no atmosphere and no oceans that greatly complicate both Earth’s absorption of solar radiation and the various system components into which it is distributed.
2) Likewise, the Moon has no atmosphere and no oceans that greatly complicate Earth’s radiative emissions of power that combine to produce the very stable average system temperature which Earth maintains over millennial timescales. (That is, the power in = power out balance.)
3) The albedo of the lunar surface is pretty uniform and constant at about 0.12, whereas the average albedo of Earth and its atmosphere is about 0.3 and can vary significantly over a matter of days and months with cloud type and percentage coverage variations. For reference:
— the albedo of Earth’s land masses varies from about 0.1 to 0.4, largely depending on vegetation coverage
— the albedo of Earth’s oceans in a typical sea state is about 0.06
— the albedo of bare sea ice varies from about 0.5 to about 0.7
— the mean albedo of snow on ice (such as found on the continent of Antarctica) is about 0.82
— and the albedo of clouds can vary from about 0.1 (high thin clouds such as cirrus) to about 0.9 (low thick clouds such as stratocumulus).
4) Unlike the Moon, the Earth has short-term atmospheric phenomena (e.g., vertical convection, such as thermals and development of clouds and thunderstorms; and horizontal convection, such as prevailing winds, cold fronts, warm fronts and jet streams) which fairly rapidly distribute energy across the planet.
5) Unlike the Moon, the Earth has significant bi-directional energy-exchange processes between the land, the oceans and the atmosphere, including the process of evaporation/condensation and LWIR surface-atmosphere coupling enabled predominately by the presence of water vapor.
6) Finally, unlike the Moon, the presence and dominance of the oceans over surface land masses (a 71:39 ratio by area) provides an immediately-available, massive reservoir of energy/power to stabilize short-term natural transients (e.g., day/night variations) and longer-term natural transients (e.g., Earth’s seasonal variations due to solar orbit elongation and tilt wrt the ecliptic). The Moon has a much greater range in its surface temperature over the course of its single-rotation-wrt-the-Sun than does the Earth in its single-rotation-wrt-the-Sun.
It is interesting that the albedo of the Moon is so low. I think most people do not realize that the bright thing they see up in the night sky is actually about as reflective as asphalt.
“…I have seen statements that greenhouse gases high in the atmosphere are the way that radiation goes to space and hence there is cooling.Some evn claim that an atmosphere without GHG is unable to radiate…”
I have seen people say these things too.
But we cannot have a real conversation unless we each listen to what the others say and respond to those particular things, yes?
If we do our best to stick to doing just that, then no matter our disagreements, at least we can all move a conversation forward.
“I have seen statements “
That’s all well and good, but when you are replying to someone, it’s not the statements that you have seen elsewhere that matters, it’s the statement the person you are replying to that does. When you attack statements they did not make in reply to them, you are simply tackling a strawman rather than anything they said.
Geoff Sherrington posted, rather foolishly” “. . . because it has no GHG which you say are the only way to send heat to space.”
I do very much appreciate others coming to my defense to point out that I never said any such thing.
Geoff, you appear to have a reading comprehension problem, so I will address the basic question you asked me as simply as possible, thusly:
1) Any object with a temperature above absolute zero will radiate energy to deep space most efficiently when it does not have an atmosphere (with or without GHGs).
2) The surface of the Moon cycles through nighttime (no solar illumination) and daytime (full solar illumination) temperatures on a lunar-month frequency. Even the lowest temperature within this range is relatively far above absolute zero; for example, scientists estimate that the far side of the moon gets as hot as +260 F (127 C) during the day, and as low as -297 F (-183 C) during the lunar night, and this range of temperature has been very stable over many thousands of years.
3) The reason for the long term stability of this range of lunar surface temperatures (that is, the moon NOT getting “hotter and hotter”) is that, when averaged over an Earth-year to account for the Moon’s varying distance from the sun, the total power absorbed from the Sun is exactly balanced by the total power radiated to space from the lunar surface at its surface-averaged temperature.
Geoff, I gently suggest reading up on the Stefan-Boltzmann law if you want a deeper understanding of the Moon’s radiation capability.
Would an atmosphere with no GHGs be warmer then the surface or cooler?
Simplep,
Moon, our moon is dead.
Radiation makes no any significant thermal variation normally,
when one considers the difference between life and death.
Simply Moon is geothermally truly Dead.
cheers
It’s internal temperature is not Zero though.
Very naughty boy… 🙂
But ain’t zero because geothermal or thermodynamics…
maybe radiations?!!!!
Like neutrino radiation perhaps!
Nope, Gravity pressure is more like it.
Yes of course, that one too sounds logical,
perhaps more so than neutrino radiation.
But what Gravity pressure you think…
that of the Earth versus Moon… perhaps?
C’mon, guys . . . gravity is an acceleration (experienced as a force), it is NOT a pressure.
C’mon Gordon.
What produces a Star?
Gravitation Collapse.
The internal temperature of the moon is estimated to be 1400C.
Ummm . . . it is properly known as gravitational collapse.
Even that phrase in no way changes the fact that gravity is NOT a pressure parameter, as any amateur scientist should know by just considering the irreconcilable difference in measurement units:
— pressure is measured in N/m^2 (or equivalent)
— gravity (acceleration) is measured in m/sec^2 (or equivalent)
N.B.: to be completely accurate, the gravitational force F experienced along the vector between two objects having masses M and m, and separated by a distance r, is calculated by the equation F=(G*M*m)/r^2, where G is the “gravitational constant” and has been measured directly to be approximately 6.674×10−11 m^3/(kg⋅sec^2).
Then what drive solar fusion?
Solar fusion is driven by the mediation of the strong nuclear force, and to a lesser degree by mediation of the weak nuclear force, and the associated conversion of mass to energy (per E=m*c^2) in the multi-step process that ultimately converts hydrogen to helium in a continuous process. Specifically, the nuclear reaction process is known as proton-proton fusion.
This website can help you understand the basics of solar fusion: https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Nuclear_fusion_in_the_Sun
But what causes it?
Despite what you might imagine, I am not your lap dog.
Because the moon’s surface radiates?
OK, OK, I shall stop playing games.
A couple of my assertions were merely repetitions of words of others that are common from people without a good grasp of the topic. Like I was doing Devil’s Advocate stuff. Throwing out wrong impressions to get a feel for the calibre of the responses. Of course I know that we see the Moon in reflected light. In my uni exams we were required, for example, to derive Erwin Schroedinger’s famous equation from first principles, to give you some idea of my learning level. And to tie together Wein’s displacement and Stefan Boltzmann and that whole gropu of research. As I said, most of my spectroscopy experience was atomic, not molecular, so I am undereducated there.
But I have stopped doing these games now. Geoff S
Nick,
Your diagram shows 397 W/m^2 of UWIR and 334 W/m^2 of DWIR. This is in the ballpark of other estimates like those from Trenberth 2009, Wild 2013, etc. so I’ll accept that. And note that Trenberth ascribes about 6 W/m^2 and 1K of “rectification effects” in a nod to the fact that there is a small error when attempting to model the Earth as a homogenously radiating BB, but that small of an error is hardly worth quibbling over. I am curious though, how would you construct a balanced energy budget model that gets Earth radiating at 397 W/m^2 without invoking DWIR?
The
earth’s
SURFACE
does
not
radiate
at
397
W/m^2.
That’s a new twist. In this model Earth has a surface with an average emissivity of 0.16. It also has an atmosphere that only radiates upward with an intensity higher than that of the surface. I must give credit where do though…your energy budget does balance.
I’m curious though…what materials have an emissivity of 0.16? What causes the atmosphere to only radiate upward? Why do all of our radiometers, pyrgeometer, thermopiles, etc. provide observations that are inconsistent with this model?
Even if that number is incorrect, and I would not be in the least surprised if it is indeed not entirely accurate, it hardly follows that this represents the entirety of the arguments made by warmistas.
And it certainty does not follow logically that therefore there is no such thing as radiative gasses or that such gasses as they exist in our atmosphere do not radiate.
And if they radiate, they must do so in every direction.
Or is there some mechanism directing photons that are emitted from molecules to only do so in directions that do not intersect with the surface of the Earth?
If there was, would this effect not have to occur in every situation?
There is an entire field called spectroscopy, after all.
Nicholas asked: “Or is there some mechanism directing photons that are emitted from molecules to only do so in directions that do not intersect with the surface of the Earth?”
Very good question . . . maybe Maxwell’s demon on steroids? 😉
Many scientific theories come with fine print that are not always considered, i.e. assumptions, boundary conditions, etc.
For instance, all systems above absolute zero radiate energy in all directions.
Well, maybe an isolated system in the void of space, but depending on the particular system not always and everywhere. A contiguous participating media compromises that fine print.
The popular definition of emissivity assumes constant temperature.
My experimental emissivity assumes constant energy.
See attached table.
Emissivity is a measure of the radiative/non-radiative distribution of the energy leaving the system.
An IR instrument assumes BB and when presented with an upwelling temperature of 16 C, 289 K, will display a BB value of 396 W/m^2.
This result needs to be multiplied by 0.16 emissivity to display 63 W/m^2.
The GHG upwelling loop net of 333 then disappears as does the downwelling component.
.
Your theory of emissivity has been known to be false for over a century. That’s not how it works, as countless experiments and industrial processes have demonstrated.
Excellent. I expect to see some, shall we say, ‘very creative’ responses. And a question [clarification really]. When you say “So I added the corresponding CERES data to the chart.” Is that data from CERES corresponding both temporally and spatially to the SURFRAD station in Goodwin Creek, Mississippi? The correlation is quite remarkable.
Randy – the caption to Willis’ figure 1 includes “The CERES data is for the 1° latitude by 1° longitude gridcell where the SURFRAD station is located“. Which answers your question.
What Rock said. Same location, same time.
w.
WE, a couple of your posts back commenters who are also reviewers urged you to discuss the CERES ‘models’ (data processing algorithms). Your figure one here makes that unnecessary. Surprisingly good match.
Hvorfor kan ikke den ekstra varmen komme fra havet, AMO PDO og ikke fra retunerte stråler fa oven ?
Karl said:
Because if it did the ocean would be a block of ice …
w.
I suggest people look at the flows of energy into and out of the atmosphere (including clouds) rather than play math games with the Earth’s surface. Willis appears to have the correct answer.
Dave, I can understand where you are attempting to go, but the problem with that approach is that a large quantity of SW solar radiation is directly absorbed by Earth’s surface, while a significant amount of LWIR radiation from Earth’s surface goes directly to space. These two energy flows do not balance at all times, and thus need to be accounted for despite what’s happening with energy flow into/out of the just the atmosphere.
Gordon, those two flows can never ‘balance.’ Work the math out for yourself.
Dave, there is no need to appeal to math when simple logic will suffice.
Considering that for any fixed location on Earth (excluding the special cases of areas contained within the Arctic and Antarctic circles) nighttime has zero solar input to Earth’s surface as compared to peak solar input in daytime when the Sun is near peak elevation in the sky, it is rather obvious that there will be times between night and day when the direct solar input to Earth’s surface must match the lower-than-solar-peak-radiation power emitted by LWIR off Earth’s surface directly to space.
“As sure as night follows day”, as they saying goes.
I agree that we do not need math or complex and specialized sensors to reason this out.
We can do so using unrelated observations and measurements.
We can even do so just using logic and the ACTUAL laws of physics, as well as the known properties of materials.
Fair comment!
Nobody who cares abut his career is going to point an IR instrument at the sky and NOT find downwelling IR.
But an IR instrument can very easily be “tweaked” to display energy that is not there.
The purpose of this little experiment is to demonstrate: 1) configuration of the IR thermometer/instrument can easily create temperature/power flux readings where none exist and 2) radiative heat transfer from a surface is not independent from the non-radiative processes.
One:
Emissivity is the ratio between the radiative energy leaving and ALL the energy leaving the surface. ALL is the sum of (conduction+convection+advection (wind)+latent (condensation & evaporation) and radiation) = ALL.
Emissivity = Radiation/ALL
When the instrument is set at an emissivity, say 0.4, it believes that what it sees is 40% of ALL, i.e. sees = 0.4 * ALL. A temperature and power flux consistent with the calculated ALL is then displayed which is much higher than the observed T/C/power flux reading.
The assumed surface temperature of 16 C, 289 K is inserted in the S-B equation assuming an emissivity of 1.0 to get a result of 396 W/m^2. The assumption of 1.0 is incorrect. Actual radiation from the balance is 63 W/m^2 for an emissivity of 63/396=0.16.
This explains how IR instruments read “extra” upwelling and downwelling LWIR values that defy both reality and physics.
These IR instruments are also not independent measurements because it appears from USCRN & SURFRAD data and procedures that they are “adjusted” to match surface temperatures which are measured, per WMO, 1.5 m above the ground and not the ground per se.
Two:
The fan reduces the surface temperature by about 20 F and radiation decreases as well. This is why ideal BB LWIR upwelling “extra” energy from the surface is not possible especially over the oceans where non-radiative heat transfer processes are the major heat transfer modes.
There are those who claim to measure the up/down, trapped/”back” radiated energy of the GHGs. I have explained and demonstrated how that energy cannot exist without violating the conservation of energy laws. Their extraordinary claim demanding extraordinary evidence is in their court not mine.
“Emissivity is the ratio between the radiative energy leaving and ALL the energy leaving the surface”
No Nick, that is NOT the definition of emissivity. Why don’t you look it up for yourself.
He is right, Nick (about that definition)…
See attached.
Please note that the Arrows for the where the energy comes from is NOT the surface, it is the average energy/temperature of the object.
I that not on all the Radiation flux descriptions?
If so, what is the average energy/temperature of the Earth?
Where the heck did you get this diagram? It makes no sense. What is the box? Where does the transmitted 30% go? I assume the 100% is Solar at TOA.
The left box is correct. It measures absorptivity, which absorbed radiation/incident radiation.
The right box is nonsense. We know that from Kirchoff’s law, which states that absorptivity = emissivity … but your diagram says absorptivity ≠ emissivity
Plus, the radiated energy comes from the SURFACE, not the average temperature of the object. The average temperature of the earth is hot enough to melt solid rock … but it emits ONLY per the surface temperature.
w.
That is only true for vacuum surely?
Doesn’t the wind change cooling rates?
If so it isn’t blowing away the radiation, is it?
The only place a surface radiates BB is into a vacuum.
The non-radiative processes cool the surface and that reduces radiation.
Any BB surface at 16 C or 289 K radiates at 396 W/m^2. Check.
The earth’s surface at 16 C or 289 K radiates at 63 W/m^2 per the arithmetic balance. Check.
Emissivity = 63/396=0.16.
IR instruments are designed, fabricated and calibrated assuming. BB. The readings must be diminished to reflect the 0.16.
Who says the surface radiates BB?
Trenberth.
For Pete’s sake Nick! Is the distinction between gross and net radiative flows really beyond you? (They seem to be!)
You claim to have formally studied heat transfer. But the idea of “radiative exchange” is the very first topic covered in the subject of radiative heat transfer in every heat transfer text I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen many). Did you sleep through those classes?
Here’s a link to MIT’s engineering heat transfer textbook:
A Heat Transfer Textbook, 5th edition (mit.edu)
Look at the start of Chapter 10, where they start to discuss radiative heat transfer. It’s entitled “The problem of radiative exchange”.
Is it really your assertion that MIT is teaching its thermal engineering students completely erroneous science?
I can answer that last question.
The answer is yes, apparently, and more than that.
This argument is saying quite clearly that everyone who has ever studied these subjects are not just wrong, but deluded, and liars, and just making stuff up.
What it all amounts to is some very transparent sophistry.
But sophistry, very often only becomes obvious and transparent when one is well versed in the topics at hand.
Guessing you’ve never seen an electric oven operate.
Are you saying that with an object in an atmosphere there is no conduction or convection?
That the only way that an object loses heat energy is via radiation?
If not where do they appear in the heat flux transfer between an object and a completely surrounding gas?
The heating element glows orange when the oven is on.
Why?
You did not answer the question.
AC:
A body radiates a power flux density (W/m2) a function of its material emissivity and present temperature alone, regardless of other heat transfer mechanisms occurring at the moment — incoming radiation, conductive/convective transfers, evaporative losses.
This is describing the “gross” radiative output, not the “net” radiative exchange. Nick does not understand this simple difference.
Nick is also horribly confused about the difference between what happens at any instant and what the results over time are. So if there are also non-radiative cooling processes as well as the radiative cooling, the result over time for a given input is that the object will be cooler.
But, as any halfway competent thermal engineer could tell you, that does NOT mean the radiative emissivity has changed. You will get completely wrong results if you think so. (A BB is simply an object with the maximum possible emissivity of 1.0. Most solid and liquid substances on the earth’s surface have an emissivity of around 0.96, so close to blackbody.
So Nick is just completely wrong when he claims that “the only place a surface radiates BB is into a vacuum”.
Definition of emissivity
: the relative power of a surface to emit heat by radiation : the ratio of the radiant energy emitted by a surface to that emitted by a blackbody at the same temperature
K-T diagram
“…the ratio of the radiant energy emitted by a surface…”
63 W/m^2 at 16 C or 289 K
“…to that emitted by a blackbody at the same temperature…”
396 W/m^2 at 16 C or 289 K aka the same temperature
63/396=0.16
Looks to me like it fits the definition like a glove.
SURFRAD
“…the ratio of the radiant energy emitted by a surface…”
80.2 W/m^2 at 16 C or 289 K
“…to that emitted by a blackbody at the same temperature…”
A BB emits all the energy it absorbs.
378.4 W/m^2 at 16 C or 289 K aka the same temperature
80.2/378.4=0.21
Looks to me like it fits the definition just fine.
Nick:
I keep repeating: You DON’T understand the difference between gross and net radiative flows, or the very basic concept of “radiative exchange”, which is the very first thing you learn on the topic of radiative heat transfer in any heat transfer course.
The “emissivity” term refers to GROSS radiative output, not NET, and is a material property alone. I look at tables of emissivities for different materials in my heat transfer textbooks and now on-line references, and NOWHERE do they say anything about how the emissivity changes based on radiative inputs or non-radiative transfers.
The concept of radiative exchange is no more difficult than providing change for a purchase, but you cannot get it no matter how many times it is explained to you. It appears you don’t even have the competence to be a cashier!
Yeah, emissivity is the rato of actual to black body radiation. A perfect reflector therefore has an emissivity of 0.
Yes, and for everyone measuring it looks as if it would be 1. All energy you throw at it comes just back immediately.
Definition of emissivity
: the relative power of a surface to emit heat by radiation : the ratio of the radiant energy emitted by a surface to that emitted by a blackbody at the same temperature
K-T diagram
“…the ratio of the radiant energy emitted by a surface…”
63 W/m^2 at 16 C or 289 K
“…to that emitted by a blackbody at the same temperature…”
396 W/m^2 at 16 C or 289 K aka the same temperature
63/396=0.16
Looks to me like it fits the definition like a glove.
SURFRAD
“…the ratio of the radiant energy emitted by a surface…”
80.2 W/m^2 at 16 C or 289 K
“…to that emitted by a blackbody at the same temperature…”
A BB emits all the energy it absorbs.
378.4 W/m^2 at 16 C or 289 K aka the same temperature
80.2/378.4=0.21
Looks to me like it fits the definition just fine.
Nick, go outside on a clear night and point an IR thermometer at the sky. Unless you believe someone has snuck in during the night and tampered with your thermometer, you will have just proven to yourself the existence of downwelling IR.
I’ve done this.
IR thermometers cannot do that.
All you “measure” is noise.
Funnily enough, I’ve also done this experiment, and my IR thermometer returned a temperature reading. What “noise” might it have been picking up, given the claim that downwelling IR does not exist?
Nick:
This paper by the legendary Forrest Mims:
Measuring Total Column Water Vapor by Pointing an Infrared Thermometer at the Sky in: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Volume 92 Issue 10 (2011) (ametsoc.org)
shows that you can very accurately determine the water vapor content of the atmosphere with an inexpensive IR thermometer pointed up. The lower the water vapor content, the more transparent the atmosphere is to IR, and the higher and colder the levels of the atmosphere emitting the radiation that reaches the sensor.
Hardly “noise”!
And this can be easily confirmed by such phenomenon as frost formation, and how fast the ground and the air near the ground cools off after sunset under various conditions of humidity.
I am curious about how the “no such thing as back radiation” people explain the fact that in locations in the tropics where humidity levels are extremely high, the temperature barely budges at night?
In some such locations, six months later the air is very dry, and it does cool off a whole lot at night.
Weekly, unless you cool down the thermometer close to zero Kelvin you will get false reading coming from IR rays from the instrument itselves.
johan:
These instruments have a second reference sensor inside. The radiative input is calculated from the difference between the sensor exposed to the external radiation and this isolated sensor.
Merriam Webster: “Definition of emissivity
: the relative power of a surface to emit heat by radiation : the ratio of the radiant energy emitted by a surface to that emitted by a blackbody at the same temperature” Your ‘calculations’ are BS.
Sorry, you lose the Physics Game, please play the game again later.
First, everyone who disagrees with you is measuring wrong.
Now they not only are measuring it wrong, they are doing so deliberately.
Are they all in the pay of big oil as well?
“Are they all in the pay of big oil as well?”
Obviously, they must be. They’re also liars and kickers of puppies, clearly. 😉
You are conflating IR cameras with prygeometers, they are completely different.
“Kirchhoff’s law of thermal radiation, postulated by a German physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, states that the emissivity and the absorptivity of a surface at a given temperature and wavelength are equal.” What is Kirchhoff’s Law of Thermal Radiation – Definition (thermal-engineering.org)
For formal math see Kirchoff’s Law Section 2.3.2; Thermal Radiation Heat Transfer – Google Books
Well, Willis, you have upward conduction and convection as a surface cooling effect but how would you deal with downward conduction and convection which is entirely missing ?
Good question. The difference between downwelling and upwelling radiation is the NET of conduction/convection, not “upward conduction and convection”. I’ll edit the head post to clarify that.
w.
In the other article thread someone wrote that a pyrgeometer measures net IR irradiance; if this were true, the SURFRAD measurements would have only one instrument, but they in fact have two: one oriented horizontally with the dome facing upward, and the other facing downward.
Radiation is not like air temperature. You have to point the sensor in the direction of interest.
I was easily able to infer that this must be so, without even looking for any confirmation.
Now I am wondering if there are people who do not intuitively understand this?
(Stand in any room with a light meter (or an old style camera), and point it at a window, then stand near the window and point it away from the window.
I know from my days selling plants to people, that it is common for those who are not very thoughtful or knowledgeable, to not understand that our eyes are not a very good light meter. Or more precisely, our perception of what our eyes are telling us, can trick us. Our eyes adjust the aperture of the pupil as the amount of light entering the eye changes…so there is obviously a good light meter built into our actual eye that rapidly changes this aperture in response to changing light levels.
Most members of the general public have no idea how much less light there is inside even a brightly lit room, than there is outside on even a cloudy day, or under a dense tree)
I like to know how things work. I play with sensors of various kinds and was involved with scientific equipment for many years. I design equipment, just for fun. I always look for flaws in the design. Currently designing a handheld spectrometer for IR. I make my own mirrors and gratings. The headaches of the minor details are incredible fun. It forces me to learn new things and look at things from a different perspective.
Common sense isn’t as common as you would like to think. People get stuck on an idea and just won’t let it go.
What is quoted is generally net convective/conductive heat transfer, which reports the net of upward and downward energy flows.
The downward energy flow is not “entirely missing”, it’s included in the “net” figures.
The physics of atmospheric gases re-radiating back to the surface part of the thermal energy that would otherwise escape to space is well understood. In fact, knowing what wavelengths are not absorbed and simply pass through the atmosphere is the basis of some interesting passive cooling technology.
Alarmists have been smothering us with claims about CO2 causing global warming. Is it? If so, by how much?
So far I’ve seen no precise or convincing answers to those questions. I’ve seen the plot of the radiation absorption spectrum of CO2 at 3 primary wavelengths, 14.9, 4.3, and 2.7 μm, two of which (14.9 and 2.7 μm) overlap with water vapor (H2O). I’ve seen the math that indicates that as CO2 concentration doubles, it can raise surface temperature by 1° C, which seems to have no experimental support as far as I’ve been able to determine; correct me if I’m wrong. And I’ve read some dense discussions of the absorption characteristics of CO2 at the surface and higher in the atmosphere and come away with the impression that, once again, there seems to be no experimental support for the claim that the fractional amount of CO2 in our atmosphere (0.04%) is “trapping” a significant amount of thermal radiation, much less that it’s the “primary cause” of global warming over the last 50 years or so.
Any thoughts?
Water vapor and clouds are the main absorbers and radiators, while CO2 and others are smaller players. Nevertheless, CO2 effects are not unimportant, but do not dominate the issue. Lab absorption measurements support the possible CO2 1C per doubling effect in the absence of feedbacks. However there are feedbacks, and these are the real issue. Generally nature has negative feedbacks, otherwise many small changes in a factor would cause more problems than observed, so it is likely that less than 1C would result from doubling CO2. One possible positive feedback is melting of ice over water or land, which changes absorption, but it does not seem to dominate at present conditions.
I think their case is even worse than just negative feedbacks. As I posted, you have to subtract out the surface cooling from evaporation. Eventually everything is radiation (at height), but not at the surface.
You have to adjust for percent of cooling. Grabbing numbers, if 80% of surface cooling is through evaporation, and 20% by radiation, then you have to factor that into the effect of CO2 doubling. Obviously it would significantly reduce the effect for my made up scenario, but that’s the concept.
I did not follow the link, but passive cooling is even used by animals. I think Willis posted something about this a while back — silver ants or some such. Also, the engineering figure of merit for solar heating and cooling is emissivity at object temperature divided by solar absorptivity. This ratio varies over a broad range of values.
Two comments about lines of evidence: With regard to the question of absorption of IR by a trace gas (you point to only 0.04% CO2) a second factor is path length, which in the atmosphere is quite long. The product of the two, which is what engineering correlations regarding emissivity of CO2 and H2O atmospheres in enclosures like boilers and furnaces is based on provide a figure of more than 400 (kPa-m) for CO2 which is an equivalent emissivity of 0.2 or so (the engineering correlation doesn’t actually go out so far, but is on such a slowly rising asymptote that 0.2 isn’t too far wrong). The bigger effect is from water vapor. So, engineering experiments would suggest 0.04% is plenty of CO2 for a measureable effect.
The other observation is that the effective emissivity from above the atmosphere is around 0.6 even though all surface materials at surface temperatures are generally black at emissivity of 0.92 or more. There has to be IR active gases in between to explain this observation; and while the dominate effect is from water vapor, CO2 in the absense of water vapor would probably be about 1/3 as effective even at its very low concentration.
The only real direct effect I could see from CO2 increasing would be to absorb in the ~15um band a bit closer to the surface than it currently does. The effect seems to be fully saturated for the atmosphere from what I’ve seen, so net warming is largely bogus unless you’re measuring a specific altitude (in this case, I think we’re talking about just a few dozen meters from the surface already).
Scientists have had for a long time a lot of information about what the temperature of various places on the Earth was in the past, as well as a lot of information about past CO2 levels.
We also know that the same processes and principles and physical laws that have operated in the past are the same one’s operating today, and will be operating in the future.
Even if we knew nothing else but this information, we can confidently say that the notion of CO2 controlling the temperature of the planet is pure malarkey.
As is the notion that we have anything to fear from small increases in temperature, or even large ones.
Another way to study these data is to look at the net IR using (5.67*10^-8)*(t1-t2)^4 where t1 is the surface temperature and t2 is the dew point at the bottom of clouds. Radiation is “line-of-sight” and “fast-as-light”. Dew point can be calculated from reported atmospheric temperature and relative humidity.
Fred: You have the formula wrong. It should be
(5.67*10^-8)*(t1^4-t2^4). Temperatures in Kelvin. Proper application would also need in include emissivities of both objects and areas involved. The form above would apply when both emitting (warmer) and receiving (cooler) surfaces have emissivity 1.0 and unity area.
Engineers who routinely deal with heat exchange concerns are very familiar with this form of the SB equation and understand that it accurately determines the net heat exchange between objects at different temperatures by combining the radiant flux emitted in both directions.
Two comments: Your “net” value seems to be in error it should not be (5.67*10^-8)*(t1-t2)^4, but rather (5.67*10^-8)*(t1^4-t2^4), and
You leave out the contribution in the region from ground surface to base of clouds — absorption and emission.
Thanks for the correction. My look at the data at Pen State 2020 shows a very strong relationship between dew point and down welling IR.Use the SB equation and the dew point in Kelvin.
This data is from Desert Rock 6/19/20.
SURFRAD records data every minute for 1,440 data points per 24 hours.
A watt is not energy, it is power, energy over time, i.e. 3.412 Btu/Eng h or 3.6 kJ/SI h.
So, the column can simple be added for the accumulated total Btu or kJ for the 24 hours.
Column 20 records 40% more energy leaving the surface than arrived from the sun column 13.
Pretty good trick.
If one assumes the atmosphere (including clouds) doesn’t radiate both upwards and downwards, yeah, its a pretty good trick.
Clouds don’t/can’t radiate downwards.
Nick, please go somewhere else to spout your nonsense. Are you telling me that clouds are at 0 K?
I believe Nick is trying to claim that clouds only radiate upwards. I’d love to know how molecules know which way is up and which way is down, so that they only radiate up.
Considering especially that they are moving extremely fast and tumbling and turning in three dimensions all the while.
That is where gravity comes into play. The molecules, when falling down concentrate their energy, which isn’t affected by forces, at their upper part and so it comes that when it’s time to radiate the preferred direction is upwards. See? It’s that simple.
I hope you’re joking.
So clouds have tiny sensors that orient their tiny dish transmitters away from the planet??? How exactly does a water molecule not radiate in any random direction, some of which contain a “downwards” component?
That water molecule exists in the E-M field. It will only transmit downfield not up. It is not like a gatling gun spraying EMR energy pulses in all directions. It equilibrates the field at the speed of EMR as in a vacuum in the atmosphere and will transmit the energy pulse only toward something at lower potential (lower temperature in this case) – the EMR stands for electric-magnetic radiation and behaves the same way as EMR in a power line. The energy flows at the characteristic impedance until the source and sink equilibrate the field. A power line is a tad slower than a vacuum or atmosphere and the delay in equilibrating the field is still observable when the line is powered up.
will transmit the energy pulse only toward something at lower potential
The gift of second sight? Magic? So it looks for a moving target? And itself moves too. Then it calculates where the target will be after the transfer time. Oh wait, meanwhile the target may change its speed by collisions with other objects or the ‘energy pulse’ may be reflected by another object moving in its way.
Funny thing Nick…when I point my IR thermometer at the cloud deck I actually get a much higher value than if I point it at clear sky. It’s 6C pointed at the cloud deck to be precise. RAP sounding analysis for my neck of the woods has LCL heights at about 500 meters where it is…wait for it…6C!
Yeah, well, what you are measuring, obviously, is the difference between “cloud noise” and “clear sky noise”.
The rest of it you must be either making it up yourself, or are being paid to say that!
Well which is it…don’t, or can’t?
Seriously Nick, are you even listening to yourself at this point?
This includes both daylight and nighttime hours.
How much solar irradiance arrives at night?
There is no trick involved. That’s what happens inside any sort of “resonating cavity.”
See my blog post Atmospheric Energy Recycling.
In winter the atmosphere can be warmer than the surface if there is an inversion so the flow of energy would be from the atmosphere to the surface and the warmer air could have relocated from somewhere else.
That can and does happen in every season, for numerous reasons besides for advection.
Consider when dew forms on grass in early evening.
The dew point might be 65°, and the air at 75°.
So, what is the temperature of the blades of grass?
It can be readily proven from everyday observations that heat transfer from warmer air to colder ground is extremely slow.
Even if we did not know that the air has far less thermal mass than the ground. Orders of magnitude less.
Let’s look at some numbers, using the midpoint between june and july.
Incoming SW (red) looks like about 200 w/m^2. The down welling SW and IR (blue) is about 600 w/m^2. Meaning something is radiating toward the earth at about 400 w/m^2 in the IR band.
If *all* of the SW (200 w/m^2) was re-radiated by the earth in IR and then re-radiated by the atmosphere toward the earth you should only get a total of 400 w/m^2 of down welling IR radiation still leaving a difference of 200.
Where is that extra 200 w/m^2 down welling radiation coming from? What am I missing? Is that 200 w/m^2 of incoming SW radiation somehow turning into 400 w/m^2 IR radiation being sent from the earth to the atmosphere and then being sent from the atmosphere toward the earth?
To paraphrase: Its the atmosphere (including clouds), stupid. The atmosphere both absorbs energy (from the Sun (SW) and from the Earth (LW + sensible + latent)) and radiates energy (to space and to the Earth (LW)). All one has to do is sum the various fluxes, SW and LW. And Nick’s calculations based on an erroneous definition of emissivity are a misuse of math.
Huh? What in the atmosphere absorbs SW radiation from the sun? Most everything I’ve read says the atmosphere is transparent to SW radiation.
So the LW from the earth (and some escapes to space) plus the sensible and latent heat would have to equal 400 w/m^2.
So let’s say the atmosphere re-radiates about 80% of the sun’s insolation back to earth or 160 w/m^2. That would mean the latent and sensible heat would have to be 240 w/m^2 and since some of that latent and sensible heat is also radiated to space that would make the actual total radiation from the atmosphere more than 240 w/m^2.
Since the Ceres (space based) and Surfrad figures match, there still seems to be a discrepancy somewhere.
Tim Gorman May 28, 2021 4:19 pm
The answer is lots of things—haze, soot, dust, sulfur dioxide, black carbon, aerosols, water vapor (~ 70% of clear-sky solar absorption is from H2O vapor, particularly in the shortwave infrared region), and more than anything else … clouds.
Between all of them, the atmosphere absorbs something on the order of 75 W/m2 of solar energy.
Best regards,
w.
The atmosphere is not just gasses. Lots of dust and aerosols. If you want to find out more details then check some astronomy-related websites. They will tell you more about it. Basically, the particles intercept SW/LW and heat up and radiate. The direct ‘ray’ from the sun (SW)is intercepted and then re-emitted as LW in all directions (a simplistic explanation). The net result is an apparent reduction in SW and increase in LW. Less atmosphere when the sun is directly overhead versus, say, at 45 degrees.
What Willis said.
It is overly simplistic to divide terrestrial solar radiation into just two bands, “SW” and “LW”, with the divide between the two being 4um.
Within the SW band there is Rayleigh (molecular) scattering, aerosol scattering, and lots of molecular absorption bands, including H2O, O2, O3, and CO2. Similarly, the LW chunk contains lots of H2O and CO2 absorption bands.
It is incorrect to blindly state that “the atmosphere is transparent to SW radiation”. These back-of-envelope energy calculations just cannot represent what it really happening.
(The incident solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere has very little irradiance at 4um, and at 50um it is essentially zero.)
You are correct, as far as it goes.
Everyone is discussing these things from a hugely simplified point of view.
People do that all the time when complex topics are being discussed.
Think about what happens after large volcanic eruptions, in which sulfur dioxide is injected into the stratosphere in huge quantity.
Yes, it’s a positive feedback loop. Gain=1/(1-B) where B is the feedback fraction. Set B=0.67 and gain will be 3.
Tim, that was what stood out to me too. In a nutshell, the LW radiation from the atmosphere greatly exceeds the SW (sunlight). I find that hard to believe.
The sunlight (SW) has a fairly minor role to play in warming the atmosphere.
The SW only contributes to the monthly totals during daylight hours, while the atmosphere and the ground continue to radiate at night, so these numbers will be higher.
Why does it not cool off much at night when it is very humid, even though the huge ball of fusion fire is no longer shining it’s energy down after sunset?
Ignoring the CERES curves, keep in mind what these numbers are—monthly averages of:
Downwelling SW: irradiance measured with a hemispherical pyranometer mounted horizontally with its dome toward the sky, 0.3-4um
Downwelling LW: irradiance measured with a hemispherical pyrgeometer mounted horizontally with its dome toward the sky, 4-50um
Upwelling SW: irradiance measured with a hemispherical pyrgeometer mounted horizontally with its dome facing the ground, 4-50um
At night, the downwelling SW goes to ~zero, but the atmosphere and the ground are still radiating. This means that you can’t just make a simple addition calculation on these monthly averages, they won’t balance.
Carlo, Monte
I’m sorry, but that makes no sense. That’s like saying you can’t balance your checkbook because the deposits and the spending occur at irregular intervals.
Look, in the longer term, the amount of energy entering and leaving the planet needs to balance, because the average temperature changes very little. So what goes in must come out.
But despite that, half the planet at any instant gets no solar radiation at all. According to your misunderstanding, that would mean we can’t use averages because “they won’t balance” … sorry, but that’s simply not true.
w.
Many scientific arguments over the centuries have been resolved by the realization that we have been asking the wrong question.
The question is not whether downwelling radiation exist. Of course it does, because our atmosphere is not perfectly transparent.
But is this downwelling radiation the cause or the result of warming? That is the question we have failed to ask. As a result, downwelling radiation has become a red herring.
The true cause of warming is a change in the effective radiation height coupled with the lapse rate. This is well established science. As you increase the effective radiation height to a cooler portion of the atmosphere, this reduces outgoing radiation. And since incoming and outgoing radiation must be equal over time, the earth must warm to increase outgoing radiation to restore the radiative balance.
As such downwelling radiation is the effect, not the cause. This misconception is likely why folks intuitively reject the idea that downwelling radiation causes warming. Because it doesn’t. Downwelling radiation is the result, which explains why there is a poor correlation between temperature and CO2 over the past 500 million years.
What causes the warming is an increase in the effective radiation height coupled with the lapse rate, which reduces outgoing radiation, which forces the earth to warm to restore the long term radiative balance.
Agree. As have commented before, the GHE isn’t really a warming—that comes mainly from inbound Solar. It an absence of equivalent OLR cooling. The radiative reason for the absence is shown by downwelling OLR that did not make it to space.
Radiation is not heat. And that is why so many people from academics producing these diagram to those who comment here, get so muddled.
Heat is a statistical property of an ensemble of items (usually molecules). Radiation is a form of electromagnetic Wave.
Heat has one property: “temperature” and heat flow is a flow of energy in one direction with no other property. So you cannot have “IR heat”. Because as soon as you ascribe any other property to it, it stops being heat under the strict rules of thermodynamics (which unfortunately are badly taught in most Universities).
And this is where people get confused. In order to apply the laws of thermodynamics, they have to be applied to heat, not to radiation.
More problematic, IR radiation in the atmosphere comes in three forms …. which are exactly the same physically, but from a thermodynamic point of view, they are completely different.
1) There is IR which is part of the heat flows within the atmosphere – and being internal to the atmosphere it is considered part of the heat of the atmosphere and if it is moving from one part of the atmosphere to another it is a heat flow (along with convection and conduction flows).
2) And there is IR which is merely going through the atmosphere
3) and then there is IR which is work being done on the atmosphere or by the atmosphere. That is energy leaving the thermodynamic ensemble and interacting with the external world.
And, if you apply these rules correction this is what happens:
1) You chuck away the present diagrams which are utterly ridiculous
2) All the thermodynamic laws are obeyed.
“Radiation is not heat” followed by “1) There is IR which is part of the heat flows within the atmosphere” followed by “3) and then there is IR which is work being done on the atmosphere or by the atmosphere.”
Huh??? In the fundamentals of thermodynamics, heat (energy) can be considered as equivalent to work (energy).
I think it better that we hold onto the “present diagrams” for the time being.
Radiation is not heat. Mike Hassler is correct.
I can put a ceramic cup or some other such item in my microwave and hit it with all kinds of radiation and it will not get hot.
Besides if radiation was heat the hottest spot on earth would be at the bottom of a 50,000 W AM radio transmitting antenna.
mkelly,
Please cite exactly where I ever sated—or even implied—that radiation was heat or equivalent to heat.
I am well aware that the radiation is generally expressed in units of power flux (e.g., w/m^2) whereas heat is expressed in energy units (e.g., watt-seconds or, equivalently, joules).
Anyone schooled in basic physics should know that two physical quantities/processes cannot be the same if the units they are expressed in are not equivalent. “w/m^2” in definitely not the same as “watt-seconds”.
Your example of placing items in a microwave oven to show that microwave energy cannot make items get hot is . . . well, let’s just say it defies logic based on consumers buying millions upon millions of microwave ovens for food preparation. (You would need to understand the physics behind microwave absorption by molecules to see why your example fails miserably.)
Read what he said .. you can put a ceramic in a microwave and it will not get hot and it doesn’t … it contains no water and hence doesn’t resonate and absorb that frequency of RF.
Don’t argue against something he never said.
LdB, maybe it’s you who should re-read what mkelly posted.
Here, let me help you: mkelly posted on May 28 at 2:52 pm “I can put a ceramic cup or some other such item in my microwave and hit it with all kinds of radiation and it will not get hot.”
So, I believe an aluminum cup would qualify to be “some other such item”. Also, perhaps a not-microwave-safe glass cup? Maybe a steel cup? Even better, what about a ceramic cup embossed with metallic gold artwork or logo?
I would not suggest doing such . . . electrically conductive items, not just water and certain classes of organic molecules, do absorbed microwave energy and thus can be heated in a common microwave oven.
No he specifically said ceramic … so no it doesn’t qualify … the ceramic means he understands the importance of the material. Your answer also shed no light on why the ceramic won’t get hot it just ignored it.
That is the sort of sophistry Nick Stokes does and if you can’t make an argument clearly and in context you have already lost.
Uh-oh.
Do I need point out that mkelly used the phrase “some other such item“, and not the phrase “some other such material“? I guess I do.
“Your example of placing items in a microwave oven to show that microwave energy cannot make items get hot is”
That’s not what he claimed. His claim was “Radiation is not heat.” and it’s not. Tackling a strawman only shows how lacking your own argument is. How about sticking to what he actually said rather than the strawman you invented about it.
“Do I need point out that mkelly used the phrase “some other such item“, ”
yes “some other such item” along the lines of a ceramic cup hence the unsnipped phrase “I can put a ceramic cup or some other such item”. Items that aren’t along those lines are not “other such items” they “different items” with different properties. If he meant “any item” as you try to twist his words into meaning, he wouldn’t have had to phrase it the way he did.
Gordon, when you have to take things out of context and/or twist them into pretzels (as you did) you know you’ve lost the argument before you even started.
“Please cite exactly where I ever sated—or even implied—that radiation was heat or equivalent to heat.”
Since you seem to agree here that radiation is not heat, why are you so hellbent on taking what mkelly said out of context and twisting the meaning of his words out of all recgonition?
mkelly,
And lest I be criticized for not responding fully, the microwave portion of the EM spectrum goes from 300 MHz to 300 GHz. In comparison, the EM spectrum frequency band used for AM radio goes from about 550 to 1720 kHz, two to five orders of magnitude lower in frequency. (Again, you would need to understand the basic physics behind radiation absorption to see why AM radio transmissions heating earth soil/rock/moisture is an insignificant issue).
“I can put a ceramic cup or some other such item in my microwave and hit it with all kinds of radiation and it will not get hot.”
Indeed. I often reach into the microwave oven with my bare hands to carry out the ceramic dishes we have by their side handles, because the handles (and the dish) don’t heat up from the radiation, it’s the objects (food and liquids) inside the dish that do (it should be noted that heat from the object does transfer to the cooler dish, as you would expect, thus the bottom and sides of the dish usually heat up quite nicely, it’s only when the dish is particularly full that the heat spreads to the handles making them too hot for bare hands). Put an empty ceramic dish in a microwave and zap it all day long and no part of it will get hot enough to bother your hands when you go to pick it up.
Objects in a microwave oven aren’t being hit with heat (as the empty ceramic dish shows), the radiation causes certain molecules (like good old H2O) to become active and the movement of those molecules causes friction and thus heat.
When you say “Radiation is not heat.”, Mike, do you notice Willis does not reply?
That’s because Willis does not know the difference between radiation and heat.
Willis thinks all radiation that is emitted is also absorbed even by objects that are too hot to absorb it.
Willis should transfer to Skeptical Science.
leitmotif,
Please cite any scientific reference—just a a single citation will do—that states an object’s ability to absorb radiation is affected by its absolute temperature.
Note: I am absolutely making a distinction between “absorbing radiation” and “having net total energy transfer”.
I didn’t say that. Read it again Gordon. Btw, I think Hoyt Hottel 1954 may answer your particular question.
You may not have directly said such in so few words, but you certainly implied it by your snarky statements: “Willis thinks all radiation that is emitted is also absorbed even by objects that are too hot to absorb it” and “Willis should transfer to Skeptical Science.”
Since you seem to be familiar with/have a copy of Hottel, H. C. Radiant Heat Transmission-3rd Edition. 1954. McGraw-Hill, NY and I am not/don’t have, please quote the relevant wording stating that an object’s ability to absorb radiation is affected by its absolute temperature.
I do believe such a statement coming from one “skilled in the art” such as MIT Professor Hottel, even if made 67 years ago, would be quite shocking to most readers of WUWT.
Sir, many of us have not had the benefit of conversing with you in years past, and so any conversations in which you delineated exactly what the limits of the argument about photons from cooler objects and how and when they may or may not interact with warmer objects, is unknown to us, and perhaps unknowable.
So in the spirit of honest discourse, perhaps you would simply state what exactly the argument you are making is.
We cannot very well discuss something when one side of the discussion makes their position a matter of guesswork.
I for one am serious about understanding what everyone believes to be the case on this subject, and figuring out some way to resolve it once and for all.
I would think you would want that as well, no?
I for one stayed largely on the sidelines on this issue for a number of years, only asking questions.
And all along I have pored over reference material, textbooks, papers, and such, trying to find a definitive answer to what I believe is the central point being made.
At this point though, it is fairly clear that various people in the “no back radiation” camp have different views on at some parts of this question, and it seems to me, seems at least, that some new arguments are being made.
It is not being unreasonable to ask someone to clearly state what argument they are making, is it?
Please.
Pretty please.
Help me understand.
My understanding is that you are a physicist.
I have a whole file of papers from a topic in astronomy regarding stars in close binary orbits, and the effect they have of heating each other up.
In every case, one star is hotter than the other, frequently far hotter.
And yet they heat each other up.
These papers go all the way back to Eddington and Chandrasekhar and other noted physicists.
In none of them is there ever a single reference to any phenomena to the effect that photons from a cooler object that impinge upon a warmer object, cannot heat it up, or that these photons will not be absorbed and re-emitted.
In fact this very phenomenon, that of two stars heating each other up, even has a name, and is one of the so-called proximity effects.
If there was some physical law preventing photons from cooler objects impinging upon and being absorbed by warmer objects, would not this effect have to be observed to be true in every single conceivable instance of photons from a cooler object interacting with a warmer object in those photon’s paths?
That is what it means to be a physical law after all.
How long must one think about that to realize it would lead to absurd outcomes, and cannot possibly be true in every case involving warm and cold objects.
So let’s be conversational about it, and just have a simple back and forth so we can delineate the parameters of this argument.
Is the proposition made that in no case can photons from a cool object be absorbed by a warmer object?
Where do you think IR is “work being done”? This seems like nonsense.
You seem to be omitting the IR radiation that mediates heat transfer between the surface and the atmosphere. (Unless that’s what you meant by your odd phrasing about “work”?)
All the thermodynamic laws are obeyed in the present diagrams, if you interpret them as intended. So, why would you want to “chuck” them away?
Willis,
Living here as I do in the foothills of South Carolina, I often observe a phenomenon on mornings before sunrise that easily supports what you are saying.
Let’s say that it’s December and the air is clear. The local surface temperature (at my house) is 36 F, well above freezing at 32 F. There is frost on my truck’s windshield. So, what happened? Well the windshield, being a surface with non-zero emmisivity, is radiating to outer space through the atmosphere and its surface temperature has dropped below the sublimation point for the atmospheric humidity. So I get frost.
Let’s now take another morning with identical surface temperature conditions and atmospheric humidity, but now there is a stratus cloud cover at say, 5,000 ft. There is no frost, or even dew, on my truck’s windshield. Why? because now, although the radiation from the truck windshield (a function of its temperature) isn’t significantly different than before, it now receives radiation from the cloud which is definitely warmer than outer space. So the windshield temperature is now above the sublimation point, and no frost forms.
I have to defrost the windshield often during the winter months here, even though we often have days where the surface air temperature is above freezing. The differential where conductive heat transfer from the atmosphere to the windshield becomes enough to prevent frost seems to be about 6 F; at morning temperature above 38 F it is unlikely that frost will form, although there may be a layer of dew if the relative humidity is high enough. If there is a significant breeze, frost is also unlikely.
People that keep their vehicles under carports never see this. That’s because that, although carports are open air thingies that just keep the rain off the truck but don’t affect air temperature, they also act just like the cloud. One might argue that it’s the shadowing of the carport roof to outer space that does it, but that would be wrong. It’s the fact that the carport roof radiates energy back to the truck that keeps the frost from forming. The windshield cannot know about outer space, or anything for that matter; it only ‘knows’ that with a surface temperature and given emmisivity, it must radiate energy at some rate.
I use this phenomenon to explain some real physics to my grandsons, who otherwise would go through life with faces stuck in Android phone screens and with minds trained by science fiction CGI graphics.
-BillR
Only at night when convection stops.
Convection dominates during the sunlit time which provides the sensible heat to the boundary layer for the temperature that provides downward radiative resistance to upward surface cooling by radiation at night.
I do not think you would get much convection at higher latitudes during winter because there are fewer hours of sunlight and a lower angle above the horizon. We have to accept the idea that convection only stops at night because some observe this but not all of us.
Convection may stop at night under some conditions in some places, but does not stop at night in other places and under other conditions.
There are even circumstances where convective thunderstorms become stronger after sunset, because the upper levels of the atmosphere cool off faster than the surface when there is a humid surface layer and a capping layer above which humidity is much lower.
Over water that is adjacent to land in the tropics and in such places as the Gulf of Mexico and over the Gulf Stream, convection often becomes enhanced at night.
Much of the rain Florida and adjacent offshore regions gets in the wet season occurs due to a cycle of convection called the land breeze/sea breeze exchange.
In fact this occurs at sea side locations over a wide range of latitudes during certain seasons and weather conditions.
What happens is this:
During the day, the Sun heats up land surfaces far faster and to a higher temp than it does so over nearby water surfaces. This bends the isobars up on land and down over the water during the day, and the result is a convective cell called a sea breeze, in which air rises over the land, moves laterally offshore at altitude, descends over the water covered area, and moves onshore in a layer at and near the surface.
http://www.fccj.us/vocabulary/Tarbuck/Chapter18/SeaBreeze25.jpg
http://www.skysailtraining.co.uk/images/seabreeze.gif
At night the opposite occurs. The water is warmer than the land, and the isobars are bent up over the water, and down over the land. Air rises over the water, moves onshore at altitude, and descends over the land, and moves offshore at and near the surface.
http://www.fccj.us/vocabulary/Tarbuck/Chapter18/LandBreeze25.jpg
For this to occur, geostrophic winds (also known as pressure gradient winds) must be light, meaning it happens where there is a low pressure gradient in the atmosphere.
?w=1600&fit=min&auto=compress%2cformat&q=70
In places where the wind is in a certain range, the land breeze or the sea breeze portion of this exchange will be enhanced when the geostrophic winds reinforce the sea or land breeze winds, and they will suppress the land/sea breeze where they counteract each other.
This effect is central to understanding the pattern of daily Summer rains in the peninsula of Florida. And other sorts of important weather:
When there is very little geostrophic wind, such as in the Spring or Summer in some years here, sea breeze fronts will set up just inland all around the peninsula on both coasts, in a pattern that mirrors the shape of the coastline. When these two fronts move far enough inland that they meet, explosive thunderstorm development can occur. This is often how we get the most violent and heavy of our daily air mass thunderstorms here in these seasons.
When there is somewhat more geostrophic wind, it can come from the East or West, often alternating over the season with a few weeks of one direction then a few weeks of the other direction.
Summer winds from the West here are called a reverse flow, since the most common wind direction here in late Spring and Summer is from the East with the trade winds along the southern extent of the Bermuda high.
When we have west winds here in the rainy season, huge towering thunderstorms build up offshore of the West Coast in the predawn hours every morning in response to the rising leg of the land breeze. Once the Sun rises and geostrophic winds increase, these thunderstorms begin to move inland. The result is morning thunderstorms along the West Coast of the peninsula, and afternoon ones over the East Coast when they get over to there.
When the normal (Easterly) wind flow is prevailing, we will see these towering cumulus build up over the areas just off the East coast at night and in the predawn hours, and around sunrise they will begin the march inland, giving morning rains to the East Coast and afternoon thunderstorms here on the West Coast of the state.
At times this pattern will repeat day after day like clockwork.
Typically, the afternoon storms will be the heaviest and the longest lasting ones bringing the most rain.
The ITCZ consists of convective cells, and these may have a strong diurnal component, but they are rarely entirely absent during the night time. They often do become more spotty at night. But not always. Over places like some portions of Venezuela (for example) thunderstorms that become heavy after sunset are a regular feature, and bring some of the heaviest and most reliable rains on the planet.
It is most typical for the sea breeze leg of the exchange to be stronger, since that is when the most energy is available…during the day when the Sun is strongly heating the land. And in most places, the water is not hot enough to cause convective cells at night, but the influence of the land breeze can be just enough to trigger them on a nightly basis in places like Florida that are seasonally adjacent to very warm water.
In Florida, we can get sea breeze thunderstorms in any month, but they are far more common in the high sun seasons.
I have seen on some occasions a sea breeze front extending all up the entire east Coast of the US.
And then there are “Mountain and Valley Breezes”…
http://www.shodor.org/os411/courses/411c/module04/unit03/images/mtn_valley.gif
At risk of exposing my pedant badge, you left out some detail. This was an actual example problem in my Heat Transfer class, it has to do with the shape of a droplet of water. That shape, radiating to BB space, loses heat faster than convection (on a windless night) can restore it. Thus, the temperature of the droplet of water drops to below freezing and you now have frost on your windshield. Otherwise, everything you said was correct, I’m just filling in some additional detail.
Thanks. I work at a power plant where we study the properties of water during phase change extensively; however we hope to always operate in a thermal region *well* above freezing. 🙂
This also explains why sometimes I see rime ice and also sometimes supercooled liquid which instantly freezes when I turn on the windshield wipers, because it looks like dew.
-BillR
Question: Who was the leader of the pedants revolt?
Answer: Which Tyler
Quote: “and we’re missing about 395 W/m2 emitted minus 150 W/m2 absorbed equals 245 W/m2 necessary to prevent freezing.” Then Willis gives his answer for the missing energy gap 245 W/m2: “To me, the obvious answer is, the surface is also absorbing downwelling radiation from the atmosphere.”
Those people, who do not accept the existence of GH effect, and who also deny the reradiation from the atmosphere, will not give this right answer. I do not remember a single case in any web page conversations that somebody, who has his/her own strange ideas of physics, would have written after discussion: Oh my, now I do understand the whole point, I was wrong, and now I see. I would be really, really surprised, that it would happen in this conversation.
As I have referred, Dr. Spencer wrote that he had been thinking two hours, is the GH effect magnitude really so simple that it is the total energy absorbed by the surface 510 W/m2 minus the net solar energy 240 W/m2 meaning the difference of 270 W/m2 = the magnitude of the GH effect. He could not accept it but he did not write what is the magnitude of the GH effect according to his opinion, and if he accepts the GH effect magnitude of 155 W/m2 of the IPCC to be correct. The GH effect is simply the “extra” energy to the surface in addition to the net solar energy 240 W/m2. Basic things are very simple indeed.
Antero Ollila posted: “The GH effect is simply the “extra” energy to the surface in addition to the net solar energy 240 W/m2. Basic things are very simple indeed.”
That is far from true. The “greenhouse effect” is far more complicated than most people would like to believe. The “greenhouse effect”, as it actually happens in Earth’s environment is only slightly comparable to the physical processes that occur in a physical greenhouse, such as one used to grow plants.
In Earth’s atmosphere, certain gases, identified as “greenhouse gases” (most significantly water vapor) are able to absorb LWIR emitted from Earth’s surfaces (land, water and ice) by virtue of their molecular structure. Other atmospheric gases, predominately nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2), and not able to absorb LWIR radiation due to their molecular symmetry and absence of a permanent dipole moment.
As a result of these particular LWIR absorption/transmission differences, greenhouse gases preferentially absorb LWIR radiation that would otherwise pass directly to space through the N2 and O2 that comprise 99% of Earth’s atmosphere.
Now, here is the key process that is so often overlooked: the collision time between the “greenhouse gases” (water vapor and CO2 and methane) and nitrogen and oxygen molecules is so short, microseconds to picoseconds, within 10 km of Earth’s surface, that the LWIR energy absorbed by the greenhouse gases is almost entirely transferred to (aka, “thermalized” with) the nitrogen and oxygen throughout the atmosphere before it can be re-radiated.
It is this LWIR coming off Earth’s surface being absorbed by “greenhouse gases” and then being transferred over to the majority of the Earth’s atmosphere (nitrogen and oxygen) that enables the entire atmosphere to radiate energy (due to inherent temperature being significantly above absolute zero) both vertically upward and back downward towards Earth’s surface, thus providing the “downwelling radiation” that is so necessary to keep the Earth’s surface habital.
I think most of the people who have been involved in debating the general topic of CO2 caused catastrophic global warming, are familiar with the subject of thermalizing of absorbed quanta of radiation by subsequent molecular collisions.
But since we are on that topic, is it not also the case that collisions can and do excite molecules of radiative gasses to an energy that lets them emit a photon?
IOW, the opposite process.
Is this not one of the ways the air cools off at night, separate from conduction with the ground?
I believe some have made the argument that this does not happen to any significant degree (of course, since it seems no detail relating to any of this is uncontested).
I am curious what thoughts others have on this?
Regarding geothermal heat – we know that just a few metres down it’s a constant 25 degrees C and for every km down, temperature rises about 25C more per km. That means we have 25C-ish radiating upwards over the whole continental surface and probably a lot more at the bottom of the oceanic plates. If heat flows from hot to cold (it does), then we must start at about 25C-ish at the surface. It’s just a fact.
If this isn’t sarcasm, I’m appalled.
OK. So you are saying it’s not a constant (approx) 25c a few metres down, and temperature doesn’t rise going down. Really ?
The temperature rises going down. But it’s not 25°C a few meters down. Here’s a typical borehole record, one of about a thousand borehole records here:
Date of measurement (year): 1977.41
Estimated prior steady state GST (°C): 18.00
Estimated mean conductivity (W m-1 K-1): 2.50
Estimated mean thermal gradient (K km-1): 17.00
Depth Below Surface (m) Temperature (°C) 50.00 18.56 60.00 18.70 70.00 18.82 80.00 18.95 90.00 19.15 100.00 19.25 110.00 19.35 120.00 19.54 130.00 19.80 140.00 19.93 150.00 20.05 160.00 20.17 170.00 20.42 180.00 20.57 190.00 20.70 200.00 20.85 210.00 21.00 220.00 21.17 230.00 21.32 240.00 21.50 250.00 21.60 260.00 21.75 270.00 21.92 280.00 22.10 290.00 22.20 300.00 22.45You can see that 300 metres down it’s still not 25°C.
Not only that, but the temperature down below is NOT the rate of heat loss. That depends on the thermal conductivity. Here’s the surface heat flux data from the 1,012 boreholes listed above:
As you can see, the maximum heat flux is about 0.4 W/m2, and the average value is about 0.05 W/m2 (50 milliwatts per square metre).
Regards,
w.
Willis so where does all that rising underground heat go?
It doesn’t “go” anywhere. It slowly works its way upward through the rock and soil.
Consider a thermos bottle full of scalding hot coffee. Where does all that heat go?
Same as with the earth, it slowly works its way out of the container.
The crucial number is listed above: For that particular borehole:
This means that if you have a temperature difference of 1 kelvin (1°C) over a meter, heat will be conducted at a rate of 2.5 W/m2.
But we don’t have a 1°C/metre temperature difference in that borehole, far from it. From 200 metres down to 100 metres down, there’s a temperature difference of 20.85-19.25 =1.6°C. This is 0.016°C per metre, so the heat flow will be 2.5 * 0.016 = 0.04 W/m2 … so per my graph above, it’s a pretty typical borehole.
w.
Good thing it is so slow too, or the Earth would have become long since tectonically inactive.
There is thought to be significant energy being converted to heat in the core of the Earth on an ongoing basis due to radioactive decay, but it makes it’s way to the surface slowly enough for the Earth to still be molten or partially molten even 4.5 billon years or more after it formed.
Water at the bottom of the ocean that is adjacent to the thinnest crust on the planet is nevertheless very close to freezing.
Entire continent sized areas can remain covered in ice even with two miles of insulation between the surface and the cold air above.
And that permafrost does not seem to be in much of a hurry to melt just because the interior of the planet is molten rock.
The point is that you have completely lost the difference between temperature and heat flow.
Ooops! Another Willis groupie.
Damn dude.
What happened to you?
Huh?
I used to hear you make reasoned arguments, and back up what you say with factual data.
It is unseemly to speak this way, groupies and such.
As far as I can tell, almost no two people have exactly overlapping views on any of these questions, but mostly we do not talk about each other like this.
Most of us here are grown men and women.
Serious people, to some degree at least.
Certainly most of us take the essence of what we are here to discuss, contesting the warmistas, very seriously, and consider it one of if not the most important issue in the world today.
I do not think there is any tendency whatsoever amongst skeptics to simply parrot what someone else believes, and I have seen nothing that makes me think there is any degree of subservience of sycophantism going on.
On the contrary.
Every discussion on every topic engenders a lively debate with all sorts of disagreements, from mere nuance, to general principles, and everything in between.
What Willis said.
You know, this is the internet, and faster than you can type such comments, you can look up from authoritative sources what the temp is under the ground.
It baffles me that anyone would come off looking so completely misinformed when it is a simple thing to check on such information.
Then again, when one is just using some anonymous initials instead of a name, the impact of showing one’s self to be such is blunted.
Personally, I am curious where such an idea came from?
I knew better than that when I was in grade school.
If what you say is correct, then, explain why we have permafrost.
ggm,
?la=en
It is not true that the ground a few meters down is a constant 25°C, or any other temp, as a general rule for the whole planet.
The general rule is that, below a meter from the surface, daily variations in temp do not effect the soil or rock temp.
Below that, there a range of depths that tend towards what the average daily surface temperature has been in recent years.
This holds true in most places for depths that include the local water table, and it is found in most places that ground water will come out of the ground at about the mean annual temp for that location.
This changes quite a bit as one moves around.
The Floridan Aquifer underlies most of the state, but down in the southern part of the peninsula, groundwater is several degrees warmer than it is farther north in the peninsula.
And Florida ground water is far warmer, generally between 68 and 74° F, and up to about 77° in the southern tip, than in most other places in the country.
So no, it is definitely not 25°C under most of the US or any other mid latitude countries. Unless those places have an annual average temp that is that warm.
http://aztechgeo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/how-it-works-graphic1.jpg
Temperatures at great depth vary quite a bit as well:
SURFRAD measures solar energy reaching the surface, pt 13: dw_solar real.
And they measure a solar energy leaving the surface, pt 14: uw_solar real.
uw is 22% of dw.
Some say that the missing difference, dw – uw, is the “back” radiation.
I say it’s the non-radiation, i.e. cond + conv + advec + latent.
Kirchoff said absorptivity = emissivity, i.e. more can’t leave than arrived.
But less radiation can leave if the non-rad shares the load.
Say what? DW solar (shortwave, aka “SW) is sunshine hitting the surface. UW solar is sunshine (SW) reflected from the surface. The difference is solar absorbed by the surface.
Nothing to do with back radiation, nothing to do with longwave, nothing to do with sensible or latent heat, nothing to do with “cond + conv + advec + latent”. It’s just the surface albedo at work.
w.
Willis, how does LW Downwelling compare to LW Upwelling (i.e. without the SW downwelling component?). just curious, is it easy to show this? I can sort of eyeball it from the chart.
JCM
I would wager they are about the same. This seems important to me. I’ve never understood dividing the ambient heat arbitrarily into directions of up and down. The whole idea of that seems imaginary – seems rather dependent on the perspective of the observer. Are they not both a measure of the same thing? correct me if I’m mistaken, please.
First, there’s nothing called “ambient heat”. Heat is defined as thermal energy which is flowing spontaneously from hot to cold.
What we are talking about is radiation, not heat. Radiation does NOT flow spontaneously from hot to cold. Radiation is just emitted in some direction and travels until it hits something. There, some is absorbed and some is reflected, regardless of the temperature of the object it hits. Whatever is absorbed is generally converted to heat. (The exception is when it is converted into chemical energy, as in photosynthetically active radiation.)
If you think of light it might make more sense. If I shine a flashlight at the sky, that’s upwelling visible radiation. Sunshine, on the other hand, is downwelling visible radiation.
And curiously, if I shine a flashlight at the sun, the sun gets warmer. Of course, the net flow of radiation (aka “heat”) is from hot to cold, that is from the sun to the flashlight. But there is a two-way radiation flow, and both end up warmer.
More questions?
Ask’em …
w.
ya ya heat vs radiation I know I know. Is there an assumption here that solar input is all SW?
JCM: 99% of solar radiation has wavelengths less than 4um (so is called “shortwave”). 99.9% of terrestrial thermal radiation has wavelengths greater than 4um (so is called “longwave”). This separation makes a lot of analysis easier.
This is basic, basic stuff…
Surely some proportion of solar input is warming the atmosphere directly at various altitudes. It then becomes a part of the “terrestrial thermal radiation” longwave spectrum that is measured with these instruments. I think in this case it would be labelled “downwelling longwave” despite having never cycled through the surface in a classic longwave sense. This proportion goes into the temperature regime of the atmospheric soup like anything else. I think too many energy flow schematic diagrams have people thinking in terms of up and down arrows. In reality your LW sensor will simply read as a function of the temperature in the field of view you’re looking at – it doesn’t much matter the angle, or if you’re thinking in terms of imaginary up and down fluxes or whatever. The blob of air is warmed from various mechanisms. The specific mechanisms influencing the temperature of a given blob of air are certainly debatable but are most definitely not limited to vertical radiative fluxes. Regardless, an air parcel should read the same temperature no matter the perspective, looking up, down, sideways or diagonal. Trying to attribute this LW to some forcing agent in up-down radiative flux measurements/diagrams is most certainly problematic.
Put another way, the observed LW radiation is simply describing some properties of the system. For example, today I am wearing a red shirt. I can describe this radiatively by showing that my shirt is reflecting strongly around 650 nm. But this radiative description is not what is causing my shirt to be red. My shirt is red due to the chemical properties of the dye in my shirt. It doesn’t much matter the vantage point of the observer, it wil appear red. A purely radiative perspective might lead one to the false conclusion that the observed 650nm reflection is causing the chemical properties of the red dye. Nonsense. The same goes for observing the radiative properties of the atmosphere. LW observation is way one to describe the current state of the system but it in no way explains the mechanisms that created those properties. Suggesting that observed radiation is forcing the system to a certain temperature is backwards. It is merely an observed property, like my red shirt.
JCM:
Go outside on a sunny day, first wearing a white shirt, then wearing a black shirt. The colors are different due to the different “chemical properties of the dye” in the two shirts. The first reflects virtually all visible light, the second absorbs virtually all virtually light.
Do you seriously believe that there will be no difference in temperature between the two shirts?
You’ve missed the point of the analogy. The observed color in my example, or the observed temperature as you have interpreted, is not causing my shirt to be red. The mechanisms that result in the observed color, or temperature, are not described by the observations (or modelling) of the radiative properties of my red shirt.
From my current vantage point those looking past the observed radiative properties to understand the underlying mechanisms relating to mass, convection, pressure, and solar dynamics are in a better position to describe the observed radiative fluxes. This is analogous to looking at the properties of the dye in my red shirt to explain its color instead of saying that the reason it’s red is because it is observed to be red.
JCM:
I look to the underlying electrical and physical molecular properties of H2O and CO2 (tri-atomic, polar covalent bonds) compared to those of N2 and O2 (di-atomic, non-polar covalent bonds) to understand why the former absorb and emit longwave IR, and the latter do not, regardless of temperature.
Then I analyze how these differences impact real thermodynamic energy flows.
This should offer some interesting micro details and I’m certain they are well described in classic textbooks. regards
Does radiation emit then hit something or can it only emit if there is something to hit?
Radiation just emits. For example, we can see galaxies that are a million light-years away. The radiation was just emitted and by chance it hits our telescope. And if it didn’t it might go on for another million years …
w.
Not sure that is true, from the point of view of the radiation time doesn’t pass.
Well using that example from the question. The photons from that galaxy were emitted a million years ago, at which time we were not in the same relative position that we are now, and yet they still hit our telescope.
That’s because radiation is emitted equally in all directions. It is an expanding electromagnetic wave. That is why its power diminishes with distance. Since it is constantly expanding sooner or later we will encounter it. Detecting it is a different issue.
If your wife speaks and you are not in the room, has she actually spoken?
Of course. How long have you been married?
Long enough to not disagree with my wife
”And curiously, if I shine a flashlight at the sun, the sun gets warmer”
Which means it’s radiation increases right? So what does this do to the flashlight?
Bet you couldn’t measure either effect.
We know that the energy of motion is converted to heat via friction, right?
So presumably, an ant walking across my patio is heating it up.
So what?
Is the fact that no one can conceive of such tiny energies as “heat”, mean that what we know about friction is wrong?
Willis, now I understand why you have no understanding of thermodynamics.
Have you thought about going into politics?
Do you have anything substantive to add to any of these conversations, or do you now simply decide to relegate yourself to a comment bombing troll who adds nothing?
Nicholas McGinley: Another Willis groupie. Pops up to defend his hero without addressing the validity of my comment.
Yeah, he is my hero!
If you keep saying things that are this funny, that would be a notable improvement.
Just to be clear, it is not snarky comments or even insults and name calling that irks me, it is making a multitude of such comments while simultaneously not doing anything to move any part of any conversation forward.
What is the point of that?
Imagine if a whole bunch of people just hung around saying nothing but insulting people and name calling?
I am asking you to step up and add what you know to the conversation.
True, though radiant heat transfer occurs spontaneously from hot to cold, i.e., the net balance of radiation being exchanged by two bits of matter is always determined by the temperature difference.
* * *
It seems like a lot of people get confused that think that for this to work, radiation needs to flow in only one direction, or have an effect only when it flows in one direction.
But, the net flow of radiant heat from hot to cold happens naturally, just by virtue of the amounts of radiation that are emitted by matter at different temperatures.
It’s actually essential that the “back radiation” flow from cooler to warmer be taken into account for all the math of radiant heat transfer to work out properly.
(I’m guessing WE knows all this; I’m articulating it for others’ benefit.)
Globally, DLR (downwelling longwave radiation) is ~ 340 W/m2, and ULR(upwelling LW radiation) is ~ 390 W/m2.
w.
I don’t believe that’s what your chart data shows in any given month for 34.3 -89.9 but I could be mistaken. The chart is supposedly measurements, correct?
JCM, the chart is monthly averages measured at one point on the earth. The data I gave you is global long-term (20 years) averages covering the whole planet. No reason to expect them to be the same.
w.
will you admit the chart data presented shows basically the same value of LW considered from both downward and upward perspective?
Will I “admit” it? Say what? You’re talking like I’m trying to deny something and you are pressuring me to admit it. Come back when you can ask like a decent human being, and maybe I’ll spend the time and effort to figure out the answer.
Or you could go to the page I linked to and do the homework yourself …
Until then, stay well.
w.
Willis
Your previous post made me check Ceres against NorESM (lacking your skills I used global data). 2000-2020 I found that Net SW was 3.5 watts higher and LW down 7 watts higher than NorESM. May I ask you to plot the difference between the datasets you have used this time?
The difference is shown in the graphs, and for my purposes, it’s immaterial. You’re talking about differences on the order of 1% of the size of the values.
w.
Willis
I hate averages of averages of averages….
What I would like to see is…
What is the wavelength specific radiation (upwelling and downwelling) from 1 micron out to say 25 microns. Correlate that to temperature….
Not an average across several microns, the individual absorption spectra from the different absorption/emission modes of the CO2 molecule.
As is easily determined, most (but not all) of the individual wavebands are already saturated. The USAF has been measuring the upper atmosphere to an accuracy of individual wavelengths since at least 1955-57. What is the difference in absorption/emission at stratospheric altitudes (B29 flight operations altitude) between then, and now.
There are two curves of interest.
The Gaussian…
The Lorentz transformation of the Gaussian.
These are both measurable, statistical quantities…
In 1960 Kaplan noted, (probably some of it was classified at the time), that the model based absorption/emission spectra modeled by Plass was 2x-3x higher than observationally recorded. Our old pal Gavin Schmidt uses Plass as his touchstone, that is before harkening back to Svante Arrhenius, who’s non QM continuum model is bollox from the beginning to end.
In 30 years of looking at this issue, I have not seen in any climate change studies, what is explicitly described in the quantum theory of light physics as the principal forces involved in CO2 absorption/emission.
Not doubting, just would be very interested in the answers…
As an aside, my student satellite that we flew in 1998 carried narrowband (5, 7 and 10 nanometer wide) filters to look at this data in the visible spectrum, of the same time flown as the CERES experiment. We worked with the same scientists at NASA MSFC who were designing these systems and looking at the science. These filters looked at H2O absorption in the longer 600-900 nanometer band.
I asked this question on the other thread.
When you measure the downwelling LWIR and get a minimum of 250Wm2 what height and Temperature in the Atmosphere does that represent?
I answered the question on the other thread.
w.
Thankful I have found it.
However I am not sure why you chose 500mb, aren’t there other heights that also fit?
Quote: “and we’re missing about 395 W/m2 emitted minus 150 W/m2 absorbed equals 245 W/m2 necessary to prevent freezing.”
Willis, how many replies you can find so far for this simple question? I find zero, except me. As somebody wrote, you are asking a wrong question, since they have not a good answer.
We have a local election campaign going on in Finland right now. In tv programs, the party leaders have been asked real and simple questions. If a politician has not a good answer, he/she will not answer but talk this and that around the question itself. These comments have the same feature: this and that but not the answer to a simple question.
Again, the question is not if “back radiation” exists. Radiation is ubiquitous and a function of temperature, and “back radiation” is no exception. Explaining the GHE with “back radiation” is nothing but tautology. I do not know what IQ it requires to see this trivial fact, but from my own experience I can tell 145+ suffices.
Yes, the issue is heat, not energy.
E. Schaffer:
Please explain to us dummies how this is a tautology.
You have it here..
https://www.greenhousedefect.com/2/the-back-radiation-idiocy
Yet I can try to creep into your minds. You probably think like, if there was no “back radiation” the surface would be much colder. And that is true! It is likewise true that if you were dead, you would not live. Question: is it the reason why you live? Or is the reason more like mom and dad mating and so on… you know?
In fact you can choose ANY counterfactual scenario and reason things are like they are, because they are not different. If I assume your name is Ed, we could reason you are Ed because you are not Mike, or Joe, or Tim.. There is an endless number of alternatives, but not a single one is a valid causation.
Equally “back radiation” like any radiation emitted is just a function of temperature, as the SB law tells us. If “back radiation” was different, there would be a different temperature, sure, cause it is a law. But there is no causation here, except for the opposite direction.
E: You say, ‘ “back radiation” like any radiation emitted is just a function of temperature’.
Wrong! It is also crucially a function of the emissivity of the emitting body. The major constituents of the atmosphere – O2, N2, and Ar – have essentially zero emissivity in the LWIR range, no matter what the temperature.
But using your logic, I have concluded that the idea that operating my house’s furnace keeps the interior temperature above ambient is just a tautology. That realization is going to save me a lot of money next winter. Thanks!
Well.. maybe it is just an IQ thing after all, and all explaining in the world is futile 😉
Is the ability to communicate one’s ideas successfully part of IQ?
Or is that just a “caring enough to make an effort” thing?
What IQ is sufficient to explain what is true to people who say there is no such thing as back radiation at all?
And what IQ suffices to comment in such a way that one does not leave other’s trying to guess what on Earth one is even trying to say?
What I am saying is straight forward and actually easy to understand. The problems you may have are in what I call “socio-logic”. You try to understand by averaging bits of information, even if they are contradicting. Also you are judging the accuracy of any statment by how close it comes to this average. Also any statement, regardless of how wrong it is, will become true with this “socio-logic” if it only gets repeated often enough.
I suppose I may have such problems.
And if I had any idea what on Earth you are talking about, I might even have some chance of telling you if I actually DO have such problems.
One thing I know for sure it, you are terrible at getting into my head, and intuiting my thought processes.
I am not doing any judging.
Just reading.
But you seem to be doing plenty of judging when you issue a string of assessments about what other people understand, etc.
You jump in with some haughty claims, but then appear to be demeaning the people whom it appears you agree with.
Sniping is easy.
Conversing is more difficult.
Adding something positive to a conversation is not hard, but changing someone else’s mind about something is.
Typing words is not difficult, but writing something down in a way that the people who read what one writes, can understand what it is one means to communicate…that can go either way.
Some can do it well, others seemingly not at all.
Mind reading is impossible, and truly intelligent people understand that.
Maybe you are, as you imply, the smartest person ever.
Fat lotta good it is doing anyone else.
Nice posting Willis – I especially enjoyed how you packaged some older postings together as a coherent whole; I had never seen some of those other postings.
BUT…
I have some questions or nit-points. It seems to me that everyone assumes you can just simplify the climate and it all fits nicely together. I do not. My experience with natural systems is they are messy in the details, and sometimes the details are important after all.
Posting 1: Can A Cold Object Warm A Hot Object? I get the basic idea, it seems rather obvious to me in the simplified case. But atmosphere isn’t behaving the same way as a block of wood. It is a “fluid” that is moving about transporting heat both horizontally and vertically. The heat source (In this case the Earth) is not heated equally either – it is colder at the poles and warmer at the equator. I can agree that ignoring certain sources and sinks of energy are likely OK – nuclear half-life (emission of heat) and photosynthesis (sink for certain energies) for example, but the transport of heat is not trivial, especially since water is involved. So while I get the basic principle as you have explained it, I find myself wondering just how well it really behaves given reality of a complex climate system. I think real detailed measurements would be difficult to explain because the energy is moving about – one just has to infer a ground temperature if using a satellite.
Posting 2: Radiating the Ocean I understand this point as well, but I don’t think one can dismiss evaporation so easily. If the top layer (you use 1 mm) is warming, the evaporation should be increasing (assuming other contributing factors are stable). This provides a “ceiling” at which point warming will have an ever difficult time in increasing past – likely a logarithmic function. Also, the condition of the surface of the water likely plays a key part – I imagine strong winds blowing across the ocean’s surface will greatly increase evaporation (more surface area, dryer wind being introduced, sea spray droplets in the air). I wonder if our wonderful climate models take any of this into account?
Posting 3: The Steel Greenhouse My only problem with the term “Greenhouse Effect” is that a greenhouse works by physically preventing warm air from escaping once it is warmed by radiation. Our atmosphere is a highly active and changing system that behaves as it does BECAUSE it is moving about and because of water going through state changes as it moves. If you measure long-wave radiation up-welling from the Earth you do not necessarily know how it came to be where you measured it, only that the up-welling and down-welling totals should balance. Heat can move before it becomes radiation again.
I know I am nit-picking, but a long career in computers and programming has taught me the details are important (like round-off error).
Where does the actual Energy of the Radiation come in to the Calculations?
The Energy of UV, Short wave and white light is far higher than LWIR, this is obvious by the penetration of those frequencies in to the Oceans.
When those frequencies hit the surface and give up their energy how can that be compared to LWIR?
AC: You are confusing the total power flux density of radiation with the energy in an individual photon.
The energy in an individual photon is inversely proportional to wavelength (so directly proportional to frequency). For example, a single UV-B 300nm photon has 50 times the energy of a single LWIR 15um photon. This is why UV-B can break chemical bonds, leading to sunburn and skin cancer, and LWIR cannot.
But a 1 W/m2 power density flux of UV-B absorbed by an object transfers the same power as a 1 W/m2 power density flux of LWIR absorbed. It does take 50 times the number of 15um photons to produce this power density flux than 300nm photons.
No am not read it again.Quote “The Energy of UV, Short wave and white light is far higher than LWIR”
You absolutely are! Energy is measured in Joules, and the rate of energy transfer is measured in Watts. A Joule of LWIR has the same energy as a Joule of UV. As I have said, it takes many more photons of LWIR than UV to comprise a Joule, but two entities with the same Joules have the same energy.
This is such a basic point that it typically goes without saying.
Where in the calculations does it account for the Penetration of Water by higher energy Photons thus storing the energy making it unavailable for immediate Outgoing LWIR?
Glass absorbs your “higher energy” UV but allows “lower energy” visible light to pass through. Your paradigm is all wrong.
So you are saying it is not UV, SW and White Light that heats the oceans to depth?
That is new.
AC:
I simply pointed out through an obvious real-world counter-example that your assertion that some “higher energy” property of shorter wave radiation — seemingly that higher-energy photons can “push” further through material before being absorbed — was not correct.
I did not claim that visible light travels further through water than LWIR. That is directly observable.
Then, you agree about water, so where is that in the calculations
AC:
First, of course I meant to say: “I did not claim that visible light DOES NOT TRAVEL further through water than LWIR.” I’m glad you realized what I meant to say.
Your question “where is that in the calculations?” is a good one. The answer is that it depends on how detailed you want your calculations to be. As a first cut approximation, it doesn’t matter much whether it is absorbed in the first mm (LW) or the first few meters or tens of meters (SW). The immediate effect of a Joule absorbed at either level is to increase the thermal energy of the water, and losses must increase to balance this.
Going into more detail, consider the thin surface layer that absorbs all the incoming LWIR. This same surface layer also emits all the LWIR. Under “average” earth conditions, it is emitting about 400 W/m2, and absorbing about 300 W/m2, so there is a net radiative output of about 100 W/m2.
So the downwelling LWIR, reduces the net radiative losses from this surface layer by about 75%. This makes the surface layer far warmer than it otherwise would be. Compared to the case where there was no downwelling LWIR, this effectively acts as a layer of insulation, just like in the walls of your house, or the jacket you wear in cold weather. And this most certainly does have an effect on the temperature of the water further down.
I get your analysis but IMO, you leave something out. As a layman I only know that sometimes it is icy and sometimes it is warm on Earth. When it’s warm on Earth, then there must be retained heat. When it is icy, the heat is dissipating. To me the question is, why are we icy and why are we warm? No one seems to have a good explanation for that. So, if you want to say that it’s established science that the earth warms, you should say “under certain circumstances”. What am I missing?
Impossible to answer your question without knowing if you are talking about a single location on a daily basis, or over a year, or from one year to another, or between interglacial and glacial periods, or if you are talking about the difference between the poles and the tropics, or what?
The answer to each is different.
Sometimes it is warm because it is Summertime, and the part of the planet one is on is facing the Sun, and so the rays of the Sun hit the surface more directly, and the days are far longer, than when that part of the planet is facing away from the Sun.
But in some places and at other times, it is warm for other reasons.
Willis; the radiative impact of GHG’s in Earth’s atmosphere is to replace surface emission at the GHG wavelengths with emission from the top of the GHG column (ie: the tropopause). Since the tropopause is colder than the surface the total emission at these wavelengths is reduced therefore the GHG’s do reduce radiative loss which is in agreement with what you say in your article. HOWEVER
What I never hear discussed is that the atmosphere does mechanical work, for example winds, raising water to high altitudes. The energy for this work comes from absorbed solar energy. That means the atmosphere is a heat engine and heat engines are governed by Carnot’s laws, known since the 18th century. Most importantly this means there must be a hot junction where heat enters the working fluid (the surface in this case) and there must be a cold junction where waste heat leaves the working fluid, in this case the top of the convection loop ie; the tropopause (or lower stratosphere). This heat can only be lost by radiation and any gas that can radiate energy in the thermal IR is BY DEFINITION a GHG. Without green house gases there could not be a cold junction and that means the atmospheric heat engine could not operate. That in turn means no convection, no surface evaporation, no rain, no wind, no clouds, without convection no dust, no weather of any sort. The entire atmospheric column would be isothermal and saturated with water vapour. Because of the short time constant of dry soil (no rain) and other surface structures (think about how quickly beach sand or concrete heats up on a clear summers day) the temperature would reasonably closely track the instantaneous insolation. In the tropics this peaks at 1350 watts/sqM at noon giving a surface temperature of over 100C. Of course at night this would fall far below freezing. Far fetched? Not so, its the same as what happens inside a closed car left in the summer sun and even here in Melbourne (lat 37 south) the temperature can reach far over 60C killing children in minutes as alas too often happens. It also is similar to what happens on the moon (except the lunar “day” is 28 days not 1 as on Earth which changes the impacts of time constants)
The major net heat losses from the surface are due to evaporation and consequent convection and without GHG’s these would not occur. The total impact of GHG’s is to ameliorate surface temperatures reducing the maxima and increasing the minima to a point where life can exist on Earth. Unless someone can show there is a point of inflection, it follows that an increase in GHG’s is likely to lead to further amelioration ie: an even more benign climate not a more extreme one.
I know the above is too brief and sketchy. I put it all in far more detail in a post I sent to WUWT but unfortunately they chose not to post it. I would be interested to read your thoughts on the above.
Exactly.
”Without green house gases there could not be a cold junction and that means the atmospheric heat engine could not operate.”
Not exactly as there would still be a cold junction since O2,N2 are not IR active gases but they do both radiate and absorb feebly in the IR bands as they are matter. Absent the atm. IR active gas (water vapor,CO2, et. al.), Earth’s heat engine would still run but much more feebly i.e. not constant T(z) in the troposphere where there would still be weather.
Carnot has no “laws” named after him.
He has some principles, and a theorem.
Sometimes called a rule.
He is known for describing the limits of efficiency of heat engines.
I for one have no idea what anyone hopes to prove these endless hypotheticals regarding what the Earth would look like if something that will never happen was the case?
We cannot get ten people to line up and agree on the details what is happening in the actual world we are all sitting in the middle of for our entire lives.
If my Grandma had had balls, she would have been my Grandpa.
But then I woulda never been here, so she would not have been.
If sewer rat tasted like pumpkin pie, every day would be Thanksgiving for the homeless in New York City.
Or would it?
Nicholas, you have utterly missed the point I was trying to make. Subscribers to CAGW are claiming that the impact of GHG’s in Earth is to warm the planet. Less GHG and the planet gets too cold, more and it gets too warm so “lets stop increasing CO2 and frying the planet”.
The point is that GHG’s do NOT just make the Earth warmer. Yes they reduce radiative loss to space but they also create the conditions required for an atmospheric heat engine by creating a cold junction at the level of the tropopause ie: allowing energy loss to space from this region. That heat engine is what causes weather. Without it the daily temperature extremes (not to mention other minor issues such as no rain, no clouds etc) would be such that no life could exist at least on land. The total NET impact of GHG’s (among other things) is to ameliorate temperatures, reducing the temperature maxima and increasing temperature minima (via evaporation/condensation of water and convective processes). You can clearly see the impact by comparing conditions in a desert relative to a watery environment. With GHG’s conditions on our planet would be more extreme than the worst desert.
Now, in such a system there are really two alternatives. Firstly does the effect increase as GHG’s are increased (in which case more CO2 will result in an even more benign environment) or is there a point where the effect reverses and if that is the case where is that point of reversal. Which side of the reversal are we currently at and what causes the reversal in the first place? Surely questions that are VERY VERY far from trivial.
Is is a very different yet relevant point of view which is being completely overlooked by warmists simply claiming more GHG makes the planet warmer. It shows that their perspective is seriously deficient (at least in my view). So deficient that it makes their conclusions highly suspect. That is not irrelevant.
In answer to your point about Carnot, I think you are splitting hairs. Carnot pointed out that a heat engine cannot be 100% efficient, that heat must be lost from the working fluid via a cold junction that the maximium efficiency is defined as (Thot-Tcold)/Thot. He completely changed our understanding of how heat engines work. Whether you want to consider these simply insights or laws is entirely up to you but I don’t see that it changes his massive contribution in any way.
I can tell you know what you are talking about, but the point you were making above is drowned out by a long discussion of hypotheticals, which excuse me for saying so again, I have never observed to move any conversation forward in these matters.
In some comments below, I think you did clarify some things that needed to be clarified, but as was noted by others, you also said a few things that do not seem to be entirely true.
I might have skipped making that comment about Carnot and his work, but the thing is, when I read your comment, I had to stop and look to some reference material, looking for something that I did not recall.
So that is why I mentioned it. I was tired I suppose.
I do not think I missed what you were saying entirely, although it is difficult to parse long strings of hypothetical arguments to find the point.
And that was my point.
Heat engines are at their essence simple devices based on straightforward principles.
The atmosphere is anything but simple and encompasses nearly every aspect of several different branches of science.
Reducing this complexity to something simple is impossible, IMO.
Warmistas have gone wrong for the precise reason that they want to make it all very simple…more CO2 = hotter planet.
Which is very certainly wrong, unless everything we know about Earth history, as well as the more recent proxy and recorded temperature records, is wrong instead.
Greenhouse gases help provide a “cold junction” to drive the global heat engine, but they’re not the only one. Surface radiation from regions of the planet with lower insolation (e.g., the polar regions) also act as a heat sink that can help drive global convection.
No.
Moderating variations in surface temperatures is one of the effects of GHG’s and atmospheric (and oceanic) convective circulation.
But, this is not the only effect.
To see how GHGs can warm the surface, you might consider my essay Atmospheric Energy Recycling.
If the other gasses in the atmosphere don’t radiate much and the only way for energy off the planet is via radiation then I don’t see how adding more radiators makes the planet warmer. Less radiant gasses would seem to hang onto their energy longer and while more radiant ones might absorb energy they are also radiating faster and radiation is ultimately a cooling function. Perhaps the two balance to a certain energy level?
I do believe that when things warm they radiate faster thus cool faster. I believe that if the upper atmosphere is getting colder and the lower is getting warmer then convection accelerates, mixing the atmosphere between the two thus negating most of this effect. I believe in emergent phenomenon such as hurricanes, storms, clouds kicking into action, transporting or confining large amounts of heat to the upper more easily cooled atmosphere as needed. I believe energy in = energy out minus the emergent phenomenon called photosynthesis which both stores energy and accelerates when carbon dioxide is more readily available. This is probably a small effect but still they talk about energy imbalance and this must be at least part of this imbalance. I believe there are all sorts of physics and astronomics that have to be analyzed with empirical data in much more detail before we really get a handle on what tomorrow’s climate will bring.
The universe has a strange way of both expressing its self and gradually revealing its true nature in ways that we haven’t contemplated. The state of the climate models seems to show this very well.
I have been saying for some time that it is oxygen and nitrogen that are the real “retainers of heat”, it is GHGs that do the cooling, as they are only ones that can to any extent.
The thing is Greg that the additional radiators (GHG’s) do not operate in conjunction with the surface, but rather they replace part of the surface radiation. At the GHG wavelengths the surface emission is absorbed by the GHG’s low in the atmosphere. These GHG’s also radiate at the same wavelengths so, throughout the atmospheric column, energy at the GHG wavelengths is being continuously emitted and reabsorbed by the GHG. It cannot escape to space because it is reabsorbed by the GHG above or below before it can do so. Its only at the very top of the GHG column that the energy emitted is able to escape to space. To give some idea of the scale, spectroscopists talk about a parameter called absorbance. In essence it is a gas column that absorbs 90% of the light at the GHG wavelength incident on that column. Double that column length yields 2 absorbance absorbing 99% of the incident light (the first half absorbs 90% and the second half absorbs 90% of what remains). So what is the total absorbance of the atmospheric CO2 column? At the current concentration of CO2 its around 3000 abs. That means 90% of the surface emission is absorbed in the first 1/3000 of the atmosphere – around 10 meters, 99% in the first 20 meters and so on. It also means of course that only the bottom 10 meters or so of the CO2 column can radiate back to the surface. Any emission from the GHG is reabsorbed within a few meters of the point of emission. Its only the last 1/3000 of the CO2 column that can radiate to space and thats a really thin layer in the lower stratosphere (or tropopause).
So, if the total absorbance is 3000 that means its really really really saturated with respect to CO2 so why does increasing CO2 make any difference? The reason is that the absorption line is not a boxcar in shape but rather something close to a gaussian (its called a Lorenzian). Each time one doubles CO2 it is equivalent to convolving this gaussian with itself and the result of that convolution is a new gaussian which is wider ie: absorbs over a greater range of wavelengths. Each doubling of CO2 increases the wavelength range over which the gas absorbs by about the same amount which is what causes the logarithmic relationship. In fact, the unbroadened absorption lines are so narrow that GHG’s really only have any impact on radiative processes after the line center becomes saturated (ie: total absorbance of the gas column exceeds 1-2 abs at the line center).
hi Michael,
thank you for this. I rarely see this discussion get closer to the lower level physical transactions if you will. Can you explain what is causing this broadening of the absorption lines as more c02 is added? surely the ability of co2 to interact with. a photon of frequency X has not physically changed. is it just that the probability of the interaction decreases as you get away from the central absorption lines so that the lower probability transactions are adding to the absorption as co2 concentration increases ? also presumably the falloff in probability gets very steep at some point so that at some concentration full saturation is effectively reached. if that is so do you have any numbers around it?
thx d
Hi Davidh; good question. A molecule can absorb photons of some wavelengths because the molecule is made up of atoms (think of them as masses) connected by elastic bonds. The result is that these atoms can vibrate relative to each other in various ways. These resonances only occur in asymmetrical molecules which is why oxygen and nitrogen are not GHG’s. If a photon of the same frequency comes along it can excite this resonance and is absorbed in the process. So, you might think that only a photon of EXACTLY the right frequency can be so absorbed. Not quite; because all resonators have what is called a quality factor usually designated as Q. Because the Q is always finite (no resonator is perfect), the plot of resonance intensity versus frequency is not a line but instead a gaussian like curve (sometimes called a bell curve). That means that there is a non zero probability of a photon not quite at the resonance frequency being absorbed although the probability falls as the frequency difference between the photon and the resonance increases.
There are a number of factors that can broaden or shift the resonance. One is if the molecule is moving, its velocity will doppler shift the apparent frequency of the photon. Since in a gas, molecules are moving in all directions some will be travelling towards the photon some away from the photon so some absorb lower frequency photons and some higher frequency photons with the result the apparent resonance broadens. This is termed doppler broadening. Another way if if there are surrounding molecules which are hitting the absorbing molecule. These collision inject some energy so that the photon energy required to excite the resonance is changed. The higher the pressure the more such collisions there are and the more Q is lowered (ie the resonance broadened). It is termed pressure broadening. One could consider a solid to be the ultimate state of pressure broadening and in that case the absorption becomes a continuum rather then exhibiting a specific resonance. However it is not necessary to go quite that far. The high pressure discharge lamps used in digital projectors use pressure broadening with a pressure inside the bulb of up to 1000 psi so that the light emitted is more or less a continuum white light even though the emitting gas nominally shows resonances. While doppler and pressure broadening will occur they are not the significant factor here.
Consider we double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. That’s like 2 of our old atmospheres (pre doubling) placed one after the other. If the old atmosphere exhibited a gaussian absorption profile the new profile will show a profile which is the convolution of the old profile with itself (please look up “convolution” if you are not familiar with the term). If you convolve a gaussian with itself, the result is also a gaussian but one which is broader ie: a larger standard deviation. That essentially means the apparent line with is broadened. For example, if out in the wings of the absorption band a photon had say a 50% chance of being transmitted in our old atmosphere, in the new atmosphere it will have a 50% *50% = 25% chance of being transmitted. If the chance of transmission was 90% in the old atmosphere it will be 0.9*0.9 = 0.81 (81%) in the new atmosphere and so on.
I know its brief but I hope this answers your question.
The only problem with your description is that the KE exchange due to collissions happens much quicker than a photon release, therefore Convection will shift the heat up in to the atmosphere quicker.
That’s really not a problem.
When a GHG molecule absorbs a LW photon, yes, the absorbed energy is quickly thermalized, resulting in an incremental warming of the mixed gases in the air. The converse also happens, warm air in particular warms GHG molecules, and those molecules will sometimes radiate.
Convection doesn’t necessarily have much interaction with this process, because the layers of air above and below contain similar amounts of GHGs are are be warmed by very similar amounts. So, there is little temperature difference created, and little if any additional convection that results.
“The converse also happens, warm air in particular warms GHG molecules, and those molecules will sometimes radiate.”
I am so glad to hear someone say this.
Greg:
The key point you are missing is that radiators MUST also be absorbers (Kirchhoff’s Law). So an atmosphere with no radiating gases (O2 + N2 + Ar comes very close) has no absorption of surface radiation, permitting all surface radiation to radiate directly to space.
In our atmosphere, with H2O and CO2 and a few other absorbing gases, only about 10% of surface radiation escapes directly to space. Most is emitted from colder, higher elevations.
If downwelling LW radiation is important in any way, what best way to double or 1/2 it?
Hi Gbaikie; if you have a look at NASA’s earth’s energy budget diagram they show the surface loses NET 58 watts/sqM by radiation 86 watts/sqM by evaporation and 18 watts/sqM by convection. Only 40% is by radiation. Without GHG’s the evaporative and convective losses would not occur (see my earlier post this thread around 2:11 pm). Unless there is a point of inflection (a point where the action of GHG’s reverses) then, while increasing CO2 will slightly reduce surface radiative loss, it would increase convective and evaporate losses even more which would mean the net impact would be to cool the surface! How, by increasing convection leading to more evaporation and more rain!
Critical Radiative Theory (CRT)
From the top.
Any BB surface at 16 C, 289 K, radiates at 396 W/m^2. Check.
A surface at 16 C, 289 K, radiates at 63 W/m^2. Check.
Emissivity = 63/396=0.16. Check.
IR thermometers are designed, fabricated and calibrated assuming BB.
They must be corrected with the 0.16.
Who says the surface radiates as a BB?
Trenberth does.
TFK_bams09 et al
You need to read up on Reflectance and integrating spheres.
Nick:
I repeat for the umpteenth time: You have absolutely zero understanding of the difference of gross and net flows of radiation. This is the MOST BASIC concept in radiative heat transfer, and it is COMPLETELY beyond you!
Nick S., I will point out for Earth global surface at 289K: emissivity + reflectivity + transmissivity = 1.0
Earth’s transmissivity is zero as incident light rays on the global surface do not come out the other side of the Earth. So for Earth global surface: emissivity + reflectivity + 0 = 1.0
Substitute in Nick’s derived emissivity of 0.16 for Earth global surface: 0.16 + reflectivity + 0 = 1.0
Simple arithmetic means Nick’s derivation has increased Earth’s surface global reflectivity to 0.84 albedo when satellite measurements of Earth’s global multiannual albedo are more like 0.3
As Ed Bo and Alexy point out, Nick S. needs to read up on the basics about which Nick S. is incorrectly writing.
The answer is right there on top , he said it himself.
Can A Cold Object Warm A Hot Object? Short answer? Of course not,that would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The second part of his claim – “BUT it can leave the hot object warmer than it would be if the cold object weren’t there” is just wording trick sleight of hand, because as far as physics are concerned, both of these scenarios are just one and exactly the same.
It should take even the slow ones among us no more than about two minutes to grasp once it is pointed out.
After that you don’t need to waste time reading the other links, they only contain mathematical psychobabble with no basis on the real physical world.
Hi Eben; sorry but your comment is incorrect. The difference is a hot object radiating into a cold environment or a hot object radiating to a warm environment. In the latter case the hot object loses less heat than in the former case. Practical example, go stand outside on a cold night and note how cold you feel, then, go stand inside a warm room and see if you feel just as cold or warmer. The room is still colder than you are yet you feel warmer. No its not due to conductive heat loss, its due to more back radiation from the warmer environment than you received from the cold environment. This is exactly what Willis was talking about.
The problem is the term “warmer than it would be”.
If this concept means “255 – a slowed cooling rate” then I can understand.
If it means (255 + heat) I can’t understand. The only way to increase the radiation temperature of 255 is to add heat. This means you have to have back radiation be more than what the earth’s surface is radiating. This of course assumes equilibrium between the earth/sun. It also assumes a transparent atmosphere. I know, I know, water absorbs a ton of “near IR” in the atmosphere so the atmosphere is not “transparent”. However, If you make this choice, then near IR absorption is not really “back radiation” either because the earth didn’t radiate it. Lots of radiation diagrams show the atmosphere absorbing about 76 W from the sun, but they then add that into back radiation also. That is wrong, it is really indirect sun radiation and should be added to the 161 W.
Also the term surface is defined very vaguely. Some people take it to mean earth’s surface, while other take it to be balanced radiation height.
Lastly, using the term GHG as an overarching term for radiating gases should be discouraged. From my investigations CO2 at best contributes 22% of the warming. I’m not convinced it is that high due to limited emissivity.
Water and water vapor are the big boys on the block. The latent heat capacity is tremendous and that is the real issue. Spending trillions upon trillions to reduce CO2 is ridiculous until a CO2 -> Water Vapor feedback can be proven and quantified.
Radiation is cooler in a room than the room temperature. This is because heated radiators heat the air molecules. A radiation panel can emit at room temperature making you feel at room temperature (instead of a radiator heating air molecules). Once the radiation panel is switched off you will feel the cooler air molecules. As radiation isn’t heat only the objects absorbing radiation produces heat. Desert vs Ocean. Over a 24hr period temperature barely changes over ocean, while desert increases by 10-15C in 8 hrs.
Should have mentioned, your confusion comes about because you are leaving out one word from your second law definition. The second law does NOT say a cold object cannot radiate energy to a warmer object it says NET heat flow is always from hotter to colder. Both objects radiate to each other all the time, its just that the warmer object radiates more so the NET flow is always from warmer to colder.
Read a little about the Pictet experiment. It will bend your brain. Some intuitive thoughts are not always correct.
Excellent!
Everyone here should read all about this sort of this, and this specific thing, as well as everything leading up to it:
Pictetâ•Žs experiment: The apparent radiation and reflection of cold (pugetsound.edu)
We have forgotten to account for frigorific rays!
I use them to cool the house in summer.
Eben:
A simple kitchen infrared thermometer computes the temperature of what it is pointed at by using the temperature-dependent electrical properties of the sensor.
Take your IR thermometer and point it at something in your freezer, anything that doesn’t have a polished metal surface. Read the reported temperature. Now point it at something in your refrigerator. It reports a higher temperature, but still below your kitchen ambient.
Think about this for a moment. The sensor temperature was higher when pointed at the frig than at the freezer, even though both objects were colder than the sensor. How is that possible? Hmm…
Now take an object from the frig and put it in the freezer in front of the object you had pointed to before. (I just did this with a carton of milk.) Quickly take the temperature of this object. It still reports the higher temperature of refrigerated objects, not the frozen objects.
So it did indeed “leave the temperature of the hot object [the sensor in the IR thermometer] warmer than it would be if the cold object [the carton of milk] weren’t there [and the sensor was just receiving radiation from the frozen object]”. Just as Willis claimed!
Similarly, the temperature of the hot object [earth’s surface] is warmer than it would be if the cold object [higher elevations of the atmosphere] weren’t there [and the surface was just receiving radiation from space]. In this case, the atmosphere typically has an effective radiating temperature of about -18C (255K) and space has an effective radiating temperature of about -270C (3K).
But this doesn’t explain how the surface W/O a GHG atmosphere radiates at 255, but with a GHG atmosphere, the earth’s surface radiates at 288.
“Warmer than it would be” is somewhat of a weasel wording. Does that mean GHG’s raise the surface temperature to 288? How does a cold atmosphere do that?
Or, does it mean the earth cools to 250 with GHG’s and 220 without GHG’s.
The radiation height explanation doesn’t suffice because all I can find is that GHG’s raise the 255 degree height from the surface to somewhere above it while just saying that means the surface has to warm. But then we loop around and how does 255 get higher from a cold atmosphere?
Jim, your comment “But this doesn’t explain how the surface W/O a GHG atmosphere radiates at 255, but with a GHG atmosphere, the earth’s surface radiates at 288.”
Firstly remember every surface above absolute zero radiates thermal energy. The surfaces are not sentient, their behaviour is not modified by any other surfaces in their proximity, the energy radiated depends only on the temperature and the emissivity. If we assume the surface is close to a black body (BB) emissivity=1 then the total energy radiated will be given by the Stefan Boltzmann law.
For a warm BB surface facing a cooler BB surface each radiates according to its temperature and each will absorb the energy emanating from the other surface which impinges on it. Since warm BB radiates more energy per sqM than the cooler BB the warm BB radiates more energy than it receives whereas the cooler BB will receive more energy per sqM than it radiates hence energy transfer is from warmer to cooler as required by second law.
Now image we start to adjust the temperature of the cooler surface. If we lower it, the cooler surface radiates less energy to the warmer surface. That means the difference between the energy radiated by the warm surface and the energy received by the warm surface increases. The NET energy loss from the warm surface is higher simply because it is receiving less energy back from the cooler surface.
Take the case in your sentence above which assumes Earth receives 240 watts/sqM of short wave radiation from the sun. The Earth’s temperature will adjust until it is losing 240 watts/sqM balancing the solar energy input. If the surface radiates to interstellar space it is radiating to an environment at 3 Kelvin so the energy it receives from that environment is extremely small and by Stefan Boltzmann the temperature will equilibrate at 255K. However imagine we interpose a surface at say 200K between Earth’s surface and interstellar space that 200K surface will radiate 91 watts/sqM which Earth’s surface will absorb. Now Earth’s surface needs to lose 240 + 91 watts/sqM for equilibrium and to do that the temperature has to rise to 276K.
No, the surface will continue to radiate (240 – 91). Your evaluation of (240+91) means heat is being added from a cold body to a hotter one. The formula is (T1 – T2) where T1 is the warm body and T2 is cold body.
What this means is that the gradient from the warm body will reduce and the temperature at “time +1” will be warmer than it would be with a colder body, but it will not increase from its original value. The body will continue to cool but just a slower rate.
That is why at equilibrium temperature the radiation energy in and out is equal for both bodies and heat is no longer being transferred. If you add the energies together you will never reach equilibrium and in essence will have created a perpetual motion machine. Run through the math. If the earth surface radiates (240 + 91 = 331), then the cold body will warm further and radiate even more back to the earth which will radiate more toward the cold body and on and on to infinity.
I am sorry Jim but you are not correct, the warm body does not radiate more and more to the cold body ad infinitum.
Imagine the hot body is a sphere – call it A. The cooler body is a spherical shell concentric with A -call it B. A absorbs 240 watts/sqM from the sun because B is transparent at visible (solar) wavelengths. Now imagine we consider the system from outside B. 240 watts/sqM goes in so 240 watts/sqM must go out if A and B are in equilibrium. But B is opaque at thermal IR wavelengths so this 240 watts MUST be radiating from the outer surface of B. That means according the SB equation B must be at a temperature of 255K. But if B radiates 240 watts/sqM from its outer face it must also radiate 240 watts/sqM from its inner face ie: towards A. That 240 watts/sqM will be absorbed by A so now A is receiving 240 watts/sqM from the sun plus 240 watts/sqM from B so it has to radiate 480 watts/sqM. To do that it’s temperature according to SB will be 303K. Note A radiates 480 wats/sqM to B whereas it only receives 240 wats/sqM from B therefore there is a net heat flow of 240 watts/sqM from A to B ie: from warmer to colder as required by second law.
So is this all just mathematical playing? NO! If you check you will find one can purchase a form of home insulation which is simply a stack of shiny metal foil sheets (usually aluminium) with air spaces between them. Metal is an excellent conductor so how does this form of insulation work if not by the above principle. Second example, rescue services make use of an emergency blanket which is simply a sheet of mylar plastic with an evaporated layer of aluminium on the surfaces so it looks like a mirror. It is very effective and robust being more or less water proof. The blanket is only microns thick so how does it keep the patient warm if not by the above analysed mechanism. If you argue its simply a wind shield then why go to the expense of coating it in an aluminium mirror surface, the mylar alone would be just as effective as a wind shield.
But where does the extra 240 watts from surface B come from?
Why isn’t surface B radiating 120 watts outward and 120 watts inward and at equilibrium with surface A.
Do you see how you just created energy out of nothing. You made a logical leap that isn’t justified and just stopped.
If surface A is now radiating 480 watts at 305, why doesn’t surface B radiate 480 watts outward and 480 watts inward? You just can’t stop this process when it gets you to the answer you want. That is what the warmists do!
Another quick question. When the first radiation hits surface B, is it radiated totally out or totally in. You have to answer this question before going on.
To do this properly, you need to start with an equation differentiate it so you can determine how temps and heat react at infinitesimal periods. Using averages and algebra will lead you to the wrong answers.
Jim, thanks for your comments. I completely understand where you are coming from because when I started learning physics I went though exactly the same agonising thought processes and had extreme difficulty understanding what my teachers were trying to explain. I realise that simply reiterating my previous analysis will not help.
I think the issue is that we as humans tend to think of things in total so we see A is hotter than B so how can B possibly radiate 240 watts to A. Surely that contravenes second law! The discipline of physics however analyses the world somewhat differently. It looks at each entity in isolation and then superimposes the analyses of all entities to come up with the net result. Looking just at the physics analysis from the point of view of B gives results which contradict our world view and we reject them. They only make sense when we add the analyses of all entities together but we don’t get that far before rejecting.
From Physics point of view entity B has a temperature above absolute zero so (assuming finite emissivity) it will radiate thermal IR. Entity B has 2 essentially identical surfaces so each will radiate equally. These surfaces are not sentient, they have no way of knowing to what they are radiating, they cant think “Oh there is a warmer surface in that direction so I cant radiate that way”. The radiation is simply defined by the temperature and emissivity. The warm surface also cannot think “oh these photons are coming from a colder object so I cant absorb them”, absorption has noting to do with where the photons came from. Similarly the photons are not sentient, they cannot think “Oh I am heading to a warmer surface which is not permitted so I will have to turn round”. The radiation occurs no matter what is in the direction of radiation. The feeling is that there is a paradox between physics and the real world. In fact, the paradox resolves when one adds in the activities of the other entities.
People always think second law states energy flow is always from warmer to colder thus a colder object cannot radiate to a warmer object. Great for people who already think in the framework of physics but misleading for those who do not. What is left out is the word NET. Second law does NOT state that a colder object cannot radiate to a warmer object, its just that if it does the warmer object will also radiate to the colder one and since it is warmer it will radiate more. Thus the colder will receive more energy than it radiates and the warmer will radiate more energy than it receives. Hence NET energy flow is always from warmer to colder.
It took me years to become completely comfortable with thinking in the framework of physics so I am not surprised by the continuous conflict over issues like this.
In answer to your point that I did not comment on your equation, the answer is; if Tc rises, the difference Th-Tc reduces so Q reduces. But that means energy in > energy out. The extra retained energy causes the hot surface to warm up so the temperature of Th rises until Q is restored to its original level.
cheers
Michael
You haven’t addressed my reference to the heat equation. I’ll list it out here.
Qnet/t = ε σ (Th4 – Tc4) Ah
where
Th = hot body absolute temperature (K)
Tc = cold surroundings absolute temperature (K)
Ah = area of the hot object (m2)
t = time
The only way for the net transfer of heat to raise the temp of the Thot body is for Qnet/t to become negative. You need to show how that is done when Ah∙ε∙σ∙Th^4 is always greater than or equal to Ah∙ε∙σ∙Tc^4.
Jim:
You ask, “Does that mean GHG’s raise the surface temperature to 288? How does a cold atmosphere do that?”
Think of an analogous situation, a sink with a faucet and (adjustable) drain. Fluid flow is analogous to energy flow, and the height of water in the sink is analogous to temperature.
With a given flow rate from the faucet (analogous to a constant solar input), the height of water in the sink will adjust until the outflow through the drain (analogous to the earth’s radiaion to space) matches the inflow from the faucet. The higher the height, the greater the pressure, so the greater the outflow through the drain to ambient pressure.
Now, constrict the drain somewhat. The level of water in the sink will increase until the added pressure restores an outflow through the drain equivalent to the inflow from the faucet (which has not changed).
But wait! How did the constriction of the drain below the sink push water uphill? The answer, of course, is that it didn’t. It simply reduced the “downhill” flow of water until the pressure difference between the sink and ambient was large enough again to balance the inflow from the faucet.
In this case, a surface without absorbing gases would be like the more open drain, reaching a level of 255K so the outflows matched the solar inflows. Adding absorbing gases restricts this outflow, causing the temperature to rise until its difference from ambient (3K) is large enough again to balance the inflow from the sun.
But it is vital to understand that the HEAT flow is always from the warmer surface to the cooler atmosphere, even as the surface increases in temperature. This HEAT flow is the difference between the larger upwelling radiative flow from the surface and the smaller downwelling flow from the GHGs in the atmosphere.
This concept of “radiative exchange”, as it is usually called, is the core of any textbook explanation of radiative heat transfer. The fact that the radiative flow from the warmer to the cooler body is always greater than the flow in the opposite direction means that HEAT flow is always from warmer to cooler, consistent with the 2nd Law
Again, your model assumes that the water in the drain is constricted. Radiation doesn’t work that way! If a body is at a given temp it will radiate a given amount regardless of what it is absorbing. The net flux will be reduced so that any rate of cooling will be reduced but that doesn’t mean that flux goes “negative”, i.e., heating. That process continues until equilibrium. That is, the hot body cools and the cool body warms until they are at equal temps.
Read this link.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/radiation-heat-transfer-d_431.html
Notice the equation: q = ε σ (Th4 – Tc4) Ah
The energies are not additive. Nor does this equation include any time component.
Jim:
Constricting the water drain is conceptually equivalent to making the medium for radiative transfer less transparent, which is what GHGs do. Both increase the “resistance” to a flux. My old heat transfer textbooks analyze radiative heat transfer problems with resistive networks.
Let’s change the problem a little to overcome your objection. Now the drain pipe from the sink ends under water in a lower tank that spills over its brim to ambient. With that tank at a certain height, the level in the sink stabilizes at a height where the outflow from the sink to the tank matches the inflow from the faucet.
Now we raise the height of the tank. This reduces the pressure difference between ends of the drain pipe, reducing flow. This in turn causes the level in the sink to rise until the outflow through the drain pipe once again matches the inflow from the faucet.
Again, did the lower tank actually push water in the sink uphill? No!
As to the equation you cite, it is for the exchange between two bodies only, with the two gross flows in opposite directions. Things get much more complex when you have multiple bodies, with many flows both adding and subtracting, depending on directions.
But using the equation you cite, one way to look at it is this: With a fully transparent atmosphere, Tc in the equation is 3K. With a real atmosphere like ours, the effective Tc is usually about 255K (-18C). (This is equivalent to raising the lower tank height in my fluid flow example.) With Tc at 255K, the q in your equation is significantly reduced, so Th must be higher for the outgoing q to match the incoming solar radiation power.
You continue to make a jump in logic. “.. so Th must be higher …” How does this occur? Magic?
You keep adding the two fluxes together to get an answer. It may work for water in your model, yet radiation doesn’t work that way in the transfer of heat. Reexamine that equation.
Your model assumes that the water being “fed back” has a rate that is higher that that leaving the bucket so that it adds to the water level in the bucket. IOW, it turns the equation above negative.
To properly model with buckets of water, the “feed back” amount of water can not exceed the rate of drainage. The main bucket will continue draining, just at a slower rate. At some point the “feed back” can equal the rate of drainage and the buckets will be at equilibrium.
I don’t know how to describe it better. The water you add can never exceed the amount of water being drained. That 1st bucket is the source of water that can be “fed back” into the 1st bucket. If you add more that what is being drained, you are creating water out of thin air.
Jim:
No jump in logic, just VERY basic thermodynamic analysis, as you would learn in the first few weeks of an introductory thermodynamics course. I’m just employing conservation of energy.
You seem more comfortable treating radiative transfer as a net flow. So let’s use your equation. Starting from the case where the surface can radiate directly to space at a Tc of 3K, your equation gives us a certain net radiative flux out to space. With a given solar input Qsolar, the temperature Th of the earth’s surface stabilizes at a certain value where its outgoing power flow Qout matches the solar input — in many examples of this type, at 255K.
But if there is now a radiating substance between the earth’s surface and space, the earth’s surface sees a higher Tc value in your equation, and therefore there is a lower Qout (but it is still an OUTWARD NET FLOW). So far so good.
What are the implications of this lower Qout? Well, now there is higher power input to the surface than power output. By trivial energy balance calculations employing the 1st LoT, the energy of the earth’s surface MUST increase. This means the temperature increases. Again, I emphasize that this is true even though the net transfer toward space is still outward.
Note that this increase in temperature would not happen without the solar input, otherwise it would just reduce the rate of temperature reduction (as we note that evening cooling is slower on humid and/or cloudy nights compared to clear low humidity nights.
My fluid example is directly applicable. The drain flow is always net outward from the sink, but if it is reduced below the input from the faucet, the water level in the sink will rise.
Well said, Ed.
All of your comments here are well stated, at least so it seems to me.
What happens at night is an important part of this of course.
It took me a while to understand all of this, and I know I still have a lot to learn.
But so much of it is clear to me now.
For me, I had to empty my mind of opinions and preconceived notions, and go back to the beginning, and work through all of the history of physics.
“The net flux will be reduced so that any rate of cooling will be reduced but that doesn’t mean that flux goes “negative”, i.e., heating.”
In stars, the effect of radiation from a close binary is called the reflection effect, although note that the word “reflection” has a definition that is not the same as ordinary usage.
In fact, the amount of actual reflecting light is at most a few percent of the incident light on an irradiated star, as gleaned by modern studies that looked at polarization to determine this parameter:
Scientists prove that binary stars reflect light from one another (phys.org)
“Our modelling showed that stars are actually quite poor reflectors of light. The Sun, for example, reflects less that 0.1 percent of the light falling on it.
“However, for hotter stars, such as the components of Spica, with temperatures of 20,000 to 25,000 degrees Kelvin, the amount of reflection increases to a few per cent. The total amount of reflected light coming from the Spica system is, however, still very small.”
It has been well known for almost 100 years that each star heats the other. Eddington wrote about it in 1926 in a widely cited paper.
Heat transfer within stars is mainly radiative or convective.
So there are many ways in which the situation is at least somewhat analogous to our atmosphere, but that is not what is important. What is important is, such questions of flux and absorption have been given close scrutiny in the specific case of photons from a cooler star impinging on the atmosphere of a warmer star, and it is well known that they heat each other.
See here:
“The Proximity Effects in Close Binary Systems. II. The Bolometric Reflection Effect for Stars with Deep Convective Envelopes”https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/link_gateway/1969AcA….19..245R/ADS_PDF
If you take the time to read through such discussions, it becomes obvious that physicists have always considered the effect of cooler bodies irradiating warmer ones, and the complexity of what happens to that radiation, including detailed discussions of flux, temperature, etc.
It would be better if people replying to my post were debating what I actually say instead debating the voices it their heads.
I thought of wording it a little differently, to make it as simple and clear as possible
———————————————————————————————————-
“Can A Cold Object Warm A Hot Object? Short answer? Of course not, that would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics ”BUT it can leave the hot object warmer than it would be if the cold object weren’t there”
So he claims two opposite contradicting outcomes for the same scenario – in one sentence, as if twisting the words around a little made it something else.
He literally says in the second half of sentence that cold object makes the hot object even warmer , which in the first half of the sentence he says breaks the laws of thermodynamics.
Bizarro planet science at its finest.
The hot object cools as it radiates energy. The energy radiated by the cooler object replaces some of the energy lost by the hotter object such that it doesn’t lose heat as quickly.
That is exactly the the problem with GHG’s that are cool, somehow causing the surface temp to become warmer.
Think about heat capacities of soil and water. If instead of radiating everything away, a certain amount is “stored”, say through conduction, their temp would increase at least until the sun goes down.
How so?
What matters is the relative temperature of the surface and subsurface, not if the surface is still getting some incoming radiation.
The surface can be getting incoming radiation, and yet be cooling, if it is radiating more than it is absorbing at that instant.
Equilibrium vs disequilibrium.
I probably didn’t make myself clear. This is where a lot of climate science falls down when trying to use simple algebra and averages.
In the morning when the first bit of radiation from the sun strikes the surface, two things can occur. One, the molecule absorbing the radiation can re-radiate it, or two, it can conduct that energy further into the surface in which case no re-radiation will occur. That process continues until an equilibrium temperature is established throughout the surface and radiation in equals radiation out. One needs to analyze this with something more complicated than algebra. It happens with a time varying gradient that is dependent upon a number of factors.
Now, when the incoming radiation disappears, the reverse occurs and depending on the temperature of the surface, its emissivity, and the mass involved, radiation continues, again with a decreasing gradient until a new equilibrium is established.
What I was trying to summarize, albeit poorly, is that there is more going on than just “back radiation” that causes temperature and radiation from the surface to change throughout the day. Simple arithmetic averages on time varying functions will hide a lot of information. When was the last time you read anything on WUWT or even in peer reviewed papers where calculus was used to evaluate the climate system. Climate science has become inured to using simple arithmetic and statistics to try and describe time dependent phenomena and overlooks much.
Oh, and on that we agree completely.
I made this comment several days before this thread opened up, on the previous thread by W.E.
I am copying part of my comment, which is here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/05/26/modeling-unreality/#comment-3255582:
“What really happens is, the Sun rises in the morning (after a dark and stormy night…), and for a while there is more incoming than outgoing energy to and from the ground, and so the surface heats up.
The ground started the day with some heat left over from all the previous days, so it is not starting or ending with zero energy.
It keeps radiating more strongly as long as it (the ground) is getting warmer, and at some point in mid afternoon, the outgoing flux is first exactly equal to the incoming, and the ground stops warming, and then because the Sun is getting lower in the sky, and the ground is initially still about the same temp, for the rest of the day the ground is cooling as outgoing flux exceeds incoming.
At Sunset, incoming stops, and the ground continues to cool, until a temperature is reached where the ground is in equilibrium with the air temp and the sky temp. (and conduction of heat from below…which is slow)
Sidenotes:
We have neglected throughout so far, and it is neglected in many of the diagrams, that there is also energy transfer from the ground to the air via conduction the whole time.
-If the air is warmer than the ground, the air is warming the ground by conduction by some amount or rate.
-When the ground is warmer than the air, the ground is warming the air by some amount or rate.
Since air is far less dense and has far less thermal mass than solid ground, heat transfer from air to ground proceeds far more slowly when the air is warmer. This helps explain, for example, how and why frost can sit on the ground when the air temp is 38°: The ground is radiating more quickly than air can provide energy to melt the ice crystals. Note this only happens in clear skies and light to absent wind. Any significant wind lets the air deliver more energy to the ground, and any clouds or even haze, slows outgoing radiation below the amount needed to get frost at 38°. So this explanation satisfies observations of this common occurrence, as well as textbook descriptions of when frost can form. I myself, having been born and raised in the downtown of a big city, never saw this occurring until I was in college and bought some land way out in what city folks call “the country”. I had previously been told this is true in classes in such subjects as physical geography and meteorology, and can happily report that I live far enough away from cities that I see it all the time, starting from my plant nursery days. Imagine my surprise…ice on the ground and cars and grass in tiny crystals when it is way above freezing. But only if there is no wind and the dew point is low and there are no clouds. Hot damn, I have seen it with me own eyes, and so can you. But you have to go outside on cold nights with thermometers and look for it. Not to see the frost, but to know it is actually well above freezing even an inch above the frost. And you have to do it many times to confirm that even a mild breeze of 4mph or so, or any clouds, will disallow frost at these temps (32°-38°F)
OK, end of side note and back to discussion of my plain language description of what the hell exactly is going on with all of this incredibly controversial and utterly unproductive morass...
If there was no incoming back radiation at night, then the Earth would be almost like the dark side of the moon, with the night time temp FALLING Falling falling …down to extremely low temps limited only by how fast heat could conduct up through the ground or conduct back to the dense surface from the thin air…but the air would be cooling by contact with the cold cold cold of space ground.
As we can see from our side notes, we know that conduction up from the ground or to the surface from the thin air, is not even sufficient to melt tiny crystals of ice, or keep them from forming, even when the ground is over 70° just an inch or two down, and the air is well above freezing.
If there were no such thing as back radiation, why would not the ground keep cooling all night long?
We know air radiates, because everything does. We know moist air cools more slowly than dry air. Why does it? Because all that moisture is radiating, all the time, and at night it becomes a significant influence on how fast and how much the ground cools.
We know the ground cools faster than the air after sunset, because it can be observed that first dew and then frost, if it is cold enough, will form on ground surface long before the air is at the dew point (in the case of dew) or at the freezing point, (in the case of frost).
On Summer evenings, anyone can go to anyplace with grass and see the dew form, and do so before the Sun is even all the way set in some cases.
And we know the air near the ground cools by it’s own radiation and also from contact with the more rapidly cooling ground surfaces. How do we know this?
Because we can put thermometers outside the windows of tall buildings for one thing, or we can look at soundings from radiosonde balloons for another thing. And when we do that we see that the air is cooling off at all levels, but fastest at the ground, and we can infer how fast heat can conduct through air and know the entire air column could not be cooling by conduction from the ground. Air conducts poorly. Anyone can test this in any kitchen. Or look it up.”
Do you have problems balancing your checkbook? Radiation (money) is still radiation, in or out.
You might try adding something relevant to the discussion. Being a troll just has to be boring for you.
Eben,
Are we to take it from you what Willis has said, rather than read it ourselves?
According to you, what matters is how someone can interpret words, rather than the facts that are being described with those words, is that it?
But it is really impossible to believe that anyone capable of rational discussion of such matters is unable to discern any difference in what is being said between the two statements.
You are leaving out part of the explanation, and arguing from there that the explanation makes no sense.
It is not merely a different wording to say that a cool object can slow heat loss from a warmer object, vs a cool object warming a warmer object.
If one leaves out the part of the explanation wherein the cool object in question, has replaced an even cooler one, one has changed the conditions of the whole story.
You cannot leave out parts of what is going on and claim they do not matter, unless you first provide some explanation for why it is valid to leave out those parts!
Likewise, when you claim that all that is different between the two statements is “twisting around the words a little”, you are revealing that you are either suffering from a comprehension problem, or deliberately misrepresenting what was said.
We can all read what was said:
“Can A Cold Object Warm A Hot Object? 2017-11-24
Short answer? Of course not, that would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics —BUT it can leave the hot object warmer than it would be if the cold object weren’t there.”
These are two different propositions, not a twisting of words around a little.
But let us consider some cases of changing words around a little, and see if the result can be saying something entirely different.
Or better yet, how about we leave the words the same but add a simple punctuation mark.
Let’s eat Grandma!
Let’s eat, Grandma!
Are those the same statement?
No one has any trouble understanding what happens when someone walks in between themselves and a roaring campfire.
Sometimes I do not know what is wrong with people, but then I remember that even though some people had invented complex mathematics thousands of years ago, in 2021 after going to school five days a week for a dozen years, there are people who cannot even do simple arithmetic.
The only thing bizarre going on that I can see is that some people, who are busily being little more than willfully ignorant, are trying to lecture educated people on a science website, when they themselves seem to have failed to grasp the basics of verbal communication.
What proportion of the Greenhouse effect is attributable to Water vapor and to Carbon Dioxide?
Tom, answered a few times in recent WE post comments, Depends on your frame of reference as to specifics. AR4 implied no feedbacks CO2 ECS was about 1.1, same value as about 2011 Climate Etc calculations. Lindzen 2012 used 1.2. Moncktons equation and values calculates 1.16–so maybe Lindzen just rounded up. That is the CO2 alone ballpark.
AR4 also said water vapor by itself about doubles this value. So 2.2-2.4. Using AR4 ECS~3, and Lindzen’s f/(1-f) 2012 Bode curve, ECS is about Bode 0.65, water vapor is about 0.5, so clouds (all else per AR4 cancelling) must be about 0.15 since Bode is linear additive.
Answering your question two ways, wvf is twice no feedback CO2 by itself, and via Bode comprises ~0.5/0.65 or about two thirds of all feedback above CO2 alone, the rest being mostly clouds.
So at least half and half.
An insignificant amount that is inflated in computer models(as is the temperature of the earth for a greenhouse effect to exist). What’s fooling you in this article is the average suns energy over a month(including nights) will make it lower than what is being emitted by the ground including nights. Only 25% of the surface is heated by the sun 75% of the earth’s cloud cover. 1360/4=340.Land absorbs 100 watts more than ocean. Averaged over earth around 36 watts 329 January ( cooled by 11 watts) and 360 watts in the NH summer, gain of 20 watts. The earth is an ideal thermal blackbody so energy from the sun only adds heat (max to min) to the land, oceans and atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure provides 98 watts on top of the 240 watts the surface emits.
Willis, this has been a lot of fun. It’s interesting to see the mental knots that people tie themselves into to try and prove to themselves that we’re all wrong.
Here’s an interesting observation that anyone can make who has spent time on a tropical island and in a desert. After dark, on the tropical island, it gets cooler than the day, but still uncomfortably warm (for those of us who grew up in no-central-heating UK). In the desert, it cools down very quickly when the sun goes down, and it can get right chilly.
Why is the tropical island showing a much stronger greenhouse effect (i.e. slower night time cooling) than the desert? The CO2 in the atmosphere is much the same all over (“a well mixed gas”), so if it controls heat retention at night, they should both cool down at the same rate. Of course, it’s the H2O, which is not a well-mixed gas due to its habit of condensing and falling back to earth. This simple pair of observations demonstrates to an open mind that (a) the greenhouse effect is real and (b) water vapour is the dominant greenhouse gas. The evil genius carbon dioxide has a minor walk-on role in the great greenhouse drama/farce/tragedy.
SR wrote:
What you observed is the result of a condensible gas.
You need to define “Greenhouse Effect” before you make the claim that it is real.
Smart Rock,
With regard to your point that tropical night time is warmer than desert night time. I agree with you that it seems obvious that it is much more likely the effect of water vapor rather than CO2. However, why do you attribute it to the greenhouse effect and not simply latent heat released as the water vapor cools and condenses? That would seem to me to be the simplest explanation … which would not be a demonstration that the greenhouse effect is real. It just demonstrates that a lot of latent heat of condensation is being released. Deserts are dryer so there is less condensation and so they are cooler at night.
Best regards
“… not simply latent heat released as the water vapor cools and condenses?”
Because the effect is apparent as soon as the Sun sets, and even before, and not only after the air has cooled to the point that some of it is beginning to condense.
Right?
In fact, the effect of moisture in the air on slowing the rate of nighttime cooling is not even specific to only that moisture that is in the layer of air near the surface.
One has the same effect from water vapor no matter where it resides in the air column.
In reality, many things are always going on simultaneously, and indeed water vapor has multiple effects on the temperature of the air, besides for the other one you mention, that of releasing latent heat when it condenses.
One of these other things is that water vapor has a very high specific heat, and so more energy must be added in order to warm humid air than dry air, by a given number of degrees, and likewise more energy must be subtracted to cool humid air a given number of degrees than air which is less humid.
But none of this means that one can pick and choose which details are relevant.
What it does illustrate is that in order to understand complex phenomena, one must have knowledge of all of the relevant parameters, and also one must have some method of discerning the relative contribution of each.
One must keep it all in mind at once, and be aware of all of the relevant observations.
Water vapor in the layers of air removed from the surface will retard the rate of surface heat loss, but will not change the specific heat of air at ground level where the temperature is being measured.
If I am sure of anything, it is that the wrong ideas of the warmistas cannot be neutralized or counteracted by other wrong ideas.
Also the day time temperature is typically less on the tropical island.
Moisture stops your body cooling (human experience of a greenhouse, not an atmospheric one) on a tropical island than the desert(very low moisture content).Cooling happens upwards as weight of atmosphere decreases and molecules are further apart there are lower collisions. Atmosphere above the equator cools 30°C more than atmosphere over the polar regions at times. Not all the time.
Let’s face it – the greenhouse back-radiation theory is correct. Radiation does indeed dominate temperature. So let’s all just accept the consensus and move on…
Except that there’s a tiny condition in the small print. The theory is correct if you happen to live in the earliest 300,000 years of the universe’s history, after the Big Bang.
This was the early light dominated epoch, during which light dominated everything (hence the name). Quarks may have been flying around in the photon soup but photon intensity was too high to let atoms form.
But we no longer live in the light dominated epoch. We haven’t for nearly 14 billion years. Now we’re in the matter dominated epoch.
That means that in the atmosphere, although it’s heated radiatively by the sun, that heat quickly turns into heat of atoms in the atmosphere, ocean and land and thereafter photons take a back seat. Hard to hear, but that’s the reality. In terms of heat movement in the atmosphere convection is overwhelmingly dominant and radiative effects, while measurable, are not very significant.
Even when radiation does heat gas, it does so in the manner of gas molecules heating each other, and photonic phenomena such as absorption and emission frequencies are of negligible relevance.
That’s why Einstein said that even when electromagnetic radiation heats a gas, it does so by momentum transfer interactions very similar to the transfer of thermal energy between atoms. Following the same Maxwell / Planck distributions and statistics. Photon heat is immediately turned into heat of matter and from then on it’s matter interactions that dominate.
To quote the great man himself:
“During absorption and emission of radiation there is also present a transfer of momentum to the molecules. This means that just the interaction of radiation and molecules leads to a velocity distribution of the latter. This must surely be the same as the velocity distribution which molecules acquire as the result of their mutual interaction by collisions, that is, it must coincide with the Maxwell distribution. We must require that the mean kinetic energy which a molecule per degree of freedom acquires in a Plank radiation field of temperature T be
kT / 2
this must be valid regardless of the nature of the molecules and independent of frequencies which the molecules absorb and emit.
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2020/02/16/albert-einstein-said-no-to-co2-radiative-warming-of-the-atmosphere/
Near the end of Homer’s Iliad, Odysseus and his son plot the recapture from squatters of their family home. They have received the support of the goddess Athena in this endeavour. Odysseus says to his still nervous son, “we have Athena with us – we hardly need to cudgel our brains for further allies!”
We have Einstein on our side. We likewise do not need to “cudgel our brains for further allies”.
Yes – Doing EMR balances at the surface of the Earth amongst all that matter is meaningless.
Willis would get more meaningful results by working at the top of the atmosphere where there is much less energy transfer involving matter.
The fact that he is suggesting the surface is radiating OLR at 395W/sq.m shows he has moved beyond the bounds of reality.
Rick, why do you have to turn everything into a personal attack? It makes you look vindictive, arrogant, and unpleasant. I doubt that you are that in real life, but for some reason you want to insult me as though that would make your … curious … claims more believable.
It doesn’t make them believable. If you want to claim that the ground is NOT radiating at ~ 390 W/m2, you’ll have to argue with Stefan and Boltzmann. You know, the guys who showed that
W/m2 = 5.67E-8 * epsilon * temperature (K)^4.
where epsilon is emissivity, typically above 0.95 for the earth. If we take the surface temperature as say 65°F (18.3°C, 291.5K) of an afternoon in Goodwin Creek, that gives us something like:
5.67E-8 * 0.97 * 291.5^4 = 397 W/m2
And if you disagree, as I said, you’ll have to take it up with Mssrs Stefan and Boltzmann, and insulting me in the process just makes you look afraid.
w.
Willis wrote:
No it doesn’t. The only way that relationship is correct is if the target is at 0K. The relationship is a radiating potential. It only becomes energy when it has a target at different potential. There is no energy transfer between objects at the same potential. This is where your confusion stems.
How could EMR possibly get any distance through moisture at 100% humidity near an ocean surface. Most of the heat is transported by the air circulation and phase change of water to vapour.
As I point out below you would be much wiser to stick with ToA EMR fluxes than down at the surface where the matter makes it very complicated knowing what is transferred by sensible heat, latent heat and EMR.
“The only way that relationship is correct is if the target is at 0K.”
No, Rick. The relationship is practically used well at STP with my Ryobi IR002 IR thermometer with fixed emissivity ~0.95.
Pointed at a lab glass of ice water in my kitchen the IR002 unit reads: 32F
Pointed at my boiling tea kettle my IR002 unit reads: 212F
For about $30, you can prove to yourself instrumentally that the target being at 0K is not the only way the relationship is correct.
RickWill – “There is no energy transfer between objects at the same potential. This is where your confusion stems.”
If you accept that, it violates causality. This assumes that a body will only emit radiation towards a body that is cooler, and knows the temperature of that body so that it emits just the right amount of energy, and can also take into account any refractive index change or mirors that will change the direction of the emitted photons before they get absorbed by the receiving body. If we take stars as our example emitting body, then billions of years ago those stars sent out photons specifically for our eyes when we happened to look at the sky. You can get around this by saying they are virtual photons until they are detected by something, but that ends up somewhat paradoxical.
It’s more logical to state that the body emits in all directions according to its absolute temperature according to the S-B rule. Those are thus real photons (packets of energy) and not virtual ones. Thus the radiation between two bodies at the same temperature is not zero, but instead equal in either direction. It may be net zero, but if we place a radiometer between them we can see that each body is radiating.
I know it is standardly stated that in equilibrium there is no energy transfer, but we need to state that that is a net measurement, and that energy-transfer itself is as great as if each body was radiating or conducting energy to something at 0K (zero degrees absolute). Every time we state something as “net” or as “average” we’re throwing data away, which is OK if you actually don’t need it but not good if you understand the net or average number as being real data. It’s a derivative.
It seems logical that the Earth will only receive and transmit energy via radiation, and thus that the long-wave radiation from environmental heat, which is absorbed by the gases radiative in that part of the spectrum within a few tens of metres at ground level and re-radiated each time in all directions, will mainly be finally radiated from the Earth within the top absorbance-length of the upper atmosphere. I’ve seen statements of the absorbance length at ground level as being around 10-20m, but couldn’t find out whether they were defining absorbance length as 1/2, 1/e, or 90%. Whatever, the actual atmosphere is a lot of those lengths high, thus changes in CO2 concentration won’t make a lot of difference to overall energy radiation. There will be some changes due to the actual height (and thus overall area) of that final emission shell. Increased concentration of radiative gases will also lengthen the random walk needed for the LW radiated energy to exit the Earth, and thus delay the time between the emission of energy by radiation from the Earth, to when it finally leaves the Earth altogether. It’s that extra delay that’s going to cause an increase in measured temperatures, but it’s not going to be a lot.
Though there seems to be a correlation between global temperatures and CO2 sufficient to cause people to state that CO2 controls the temperature, especially if you only look back a short time, Willis has previously shown that correlation breaks down dramatically on the 100My and greater timescale. CO2 has a minor effect on temperature, based on history, even when we only look at the history from the end of the Little Ice Age until around 1950, and compare that to 1950 until now. It can’t be invoked to explain the Mediaeval Warm period, or the Roman one, or the Ionian one before that. 1000 years ago the Vikings were growing barley in Greenland, and the evidence for that is good. We’re nowhere near that temperature now.
The big problem in this discussion is that the Global Average Temperature really isn’t well-defined. Even with satellite measurements, which can give a figure for places that haven’t got a ground-based thermometer and never have done, the satellite needs to measure the radiative temperature and assume the emissivity of the surface. Thus we only really have an apples-to-apples database from around 1979 onwards, and accuracy leaves a bit to be desired even then. Before that, temperatures and other weather measurements were largely taken where people were, and so as cities grew the measured temperatures no longer corresponded to the same conditions, and of course airports really need to know the temperature and humidity to ensure that take-offs and landings are safe. So: we take the whole lot of available data and take an average (by various mathematical methods) of the whole lot, and it’s not actually measuring the same thing now as it was 10 years ago. If you find a long-term weather-station that’s not had urban or airport encroachment, in general they show a slight drop over the last 70 years or so, and not a rise.
Can we explain why today’s fishing area Dogger Bank used to be Doggerland around 7000 years ago, and was farmed? Can we explain why the Sahara was a lush savannah 5000 years ago before the monsoons failed and it turned into a desert instead? I don’t think human CO2 emissions had anything to do with those events, or even that global CO2 concentrations could be blamed. We’re pretty certain the various Warm Periods and the Little Ice Age were widespread over the Earth, but we can’t explain those either using CO2.
A problem I see with the standard diagrams showing downwelling LWIR is that it is not specified as to the height of the emission of that radiation. I’d figure that height to be a few tens of metres for some bands (absorbance from CO2 and H2O), with the clouds reflecting some more from a greater height. The wavelength is going to be important here. Maybe especially the 10-micron band, where there is almost no absorption through the whole atmosphere and so it’s a “window to space” we can use for passive cooling using metamaterials. Lumping everything together into SW radiation and LW radiation is a bit cavalier.
More importantly, global average temperature is a meaningless number that certainly does not represent “climate”.
Simon
Just to be pedantic, light does not take time to travel. A light photon “travels” at c meaning that it is a massless field and experiences no passing off time. This often overlooked fact is basic relativity.
Photons from a distant star take no time to travel to earth. However time itself is shifted relative to earth at the photon’s home star by many years.
This urban myth of light arriving at earth having departed the star of origin thousands of years ago is patently false and has no place in a serious scientific discussion. Light does not do time.
The interesting question is – is it possible for both ends of a photon to be entangled? Photons are bridges of causality and the “speed” of light c is not about light. It is the speed of causality.
Hatter – if you dig deeper here you start bringing up paradoxes. In our reference frame, light has a velocity, and that velocity varies with gravitational potential so that the path of the photon is diverted from “straight”. Einstein showed that it is bent by twice as much as a massy particle would be in the same gravitational field (sorry, clumsy wording, but saves a few paragraphs of precise wording), which shows that the equivalence principle is in fact wrong – you can tell the difference between a gravitational field and acceleration if you are in a closed elevator cubicle by measuring the photon path.
If you travel alongside a photon, and as you say it experiences no time from emission to absorption, then it could also not oscillate since there is no time to oscillate in – and yet we can measure those oscillations in space. Paradox. Also, any mass at all in the vicinity would appear to be infinite (relative velocity is the speed of light) and have an infinite gravitational attraction – another paradox. The photon does carry momentum, which is defined as force times time, and again if the photon has zero time then what is the force exerted over that zero time to give us a specific amount of momentum?
Thus I’d say we haven’t yet produced an explanation that is internally consistent and without paradox.
I think we can say that the source of the photon is just beyond its horizon while it travels, so that the photon carries no information about its source, and that the destination is similarly outside its horizon of knowledge. It’s simply a packet of energy with momentum. One photon thus tells you nothing about its source, though if you have enough of them you can statistically infer the temperature of the source.
Entanglement is difficult, since although we know it happens (and can engineer that to happen between photons or between particles) I haven’t seen any explanation of the mechanism by which the information is passed, maybe especially since that information seems to be passed at infinite velocity and not at c.
When I was a student I knew the accepted answers for all this and accepted them as valid. Now, almost half a century on, it isn’t as simple and I see the paradoxes in the answers, but haven’t yet managed to resolve them. Though I figure that Mike McCulloch’s QI theory fits the observations of gravitational acceleration at parsec-scale distances without needing any fitting parameters, and thus has a high probability of being true, it also needs the transfer of information (entanglement?) to work, so your last paragraph is definitely relevant. Strange thing is that it is possible to send data down an unterminated coax which is electrically short (less than 1/4 wavelength) faster than c – measured up to 8c. Thus experimentally the speed of light is not the absolute limit to data transmission that we were taught. Near-field is definitely odd. I’ll add in links to the relevant articles if anyone wants them. Still, note that causality is not violated by being able to transmit information at infinite velocity, even though an observer could then see an event happen before its cause when limited to the information about both traveling at c to the observer. I think causality is actually inviolable, though a lot of the other laws have exceptions if we engineer the right circumstances.
Maybe not quite the answer you expected….
If what you say is true then a photon has infinite energy and we have no universe
Bob – that’s why I’m saying that the standard explanation isn’t correct. Too many paradoxes. Here, though, it wouldn’t be infinite energy, just infinite force for zero time to transfer the momentum.
I’m open to suggestions as to how to avoid the paradox, though.
True
“…light does not take time to travel.”
We do not take account of events from the reference frame of a photon.
“Just to be pedantic, light does not take time to travel. A light photon “travels” at c meaning that it is a massless field and experiences no passing off time. This often overlooked fact is basic relativity.
Photons from a distant star take no time to travel to earth. However time itself is shifted relative to earth at the photon’s home star by many years.
This urban myth of light arriving at earth having departed the star of origin thousands of years ago is patently false and has no place in a serious scientific discussion. Light does not do time.”
Light certainly does ‘do time’.
For example, a laser diagnostic i worked with required light of two different colors to hit the target molecules simultaneously. I was using a pulsed laser with a pulse of 8ns, I split the light into two pulses, one blue and one green, because of the process the blue beam travelled 8 feet further than the green. As a result the diagnostic didn’t work because the two pulses weren’t in the test cell simultaneously!. In order to make it work the path length of the green beam had to be increased by 8 feet to ensure that the two beams overlapped in the test cell.
Excellent post, Simon.
Simon,
There are a huge number of specific examples showing that CO2 and temperature are not correlated, that they are only positively correlated in a few specific instances, and in these instances, it can almost always be shown to be the case that temperature led CO2, and not the other way around.
In fact, interglacials always start and temps warm when CO2 is at or near a minimum value, and reglaciation always commences when CO2 is at a local maximum value.
Looking at the past, it is literally impossible to make the case for CO2 controlling the temperature of the Earth.
Personally, I think this type of analysis, that is, an historical one, is overwhelmingly persuasive.
Rick
The mean free path of IR in regard to present CO2 level in air is 25 meters. In regard to water vapour it is even shorter.
Emitted radiation has no ‘target,’ an object emits in all possible direction based on the temperature of of the object. Everything else in the S/B equation is a constant.
Not everything in the SB equation is a constant. ε and surface area are major parts,. Not all substances have the same value.
I’m sorry for expressing myself poorly. I should have simply said there is no “target” term in the S-B equation.
I understand. Using vernacular descriptions of physical phenomena is a danger and far to easy to do.
Not that stupidity again. How come there is high ‘radiating potential’, whatever magic that is, in the atmospheric window seen from space, but not in the bands where the GHGs are active?
How come it’s the opposite seen from the surface? High radiating potential in the GHG-bands, an almost zero in the atmospheric window in the arctic. Emission spectra.
How about this:
What does it mean when relative humidity is at 100%?
It means that there is no more net evaporation from the surface.
Now, evaporation is when water molecules in the liquid phase leave the surface due to having acquired a higher than average velocity than the rest of the water, and that molecule can thus fly right out of the surface into the air.
This does not stop happening when the air is very humid, or even slow down.
What happens instead is that as many water molecules are entering the water from the air, as are entering the air from the water.
In the same way, if the water is at the same temperature as the air, and no heat is being conducted between the air and the water, it is because the same amount of heat is flowing each way.
IOW, the same amount of energy is flowing in each direction (there are always some slow and some fast molecules compared to the average velocity, and so these can exchange energy amongst each other), so the net is zero.
What about radiation?
Photons from the water in the air are being emitted at the water, and photons from the water are being emitted upwards into the air.
But water vapor will only emit, and therefore only absorb, certain discrete bands of wavelengths of photons. Is liquid water so constrained?
I had to look it up, to be sure, but my understanding is that condensed matter is not constrained in the same way that gas molecules are.
So it would seem that liquid water can emit at wavelengths that shine right through water vapor, but all the the photons emitted by the vapor towards the water can be absorbed by water molecules.
So, I am not sure, although others here probably know for sure, but I think the ocean can still emit to the sky even when the air above it is 100% humidity, and the same temperature.
Yes, no?
I did find this when I looked:
“Infrared emission spectra of liquid, bulk water at 37 and 47 ◦ C compared with black-body emission curves of the same temperatures. The letters signify the different peaks: (a) broad emission peak centred around 2150 cm − 1 , (b) CO 2 absorption peak, (c) water vapour absorption lines arising from H 2 O molecules in the air above the water surface.”
And this:
“Absorption spectrum (attenuation coefficient vs. wavelength) of liquid water (red),[1][2][3] atmospheric water vapor (green)[4][5][6][4][7] and ice (blue line)[8][9][10] between 667 nm and 200 μm.[11] The plot for vapor is a transformation of data Synthetic spectrum for gas mixture ‘Pure H2O’ (296K, 1 atm) retrieved from Hitran on the Web Information System.[6]”
Does this mean the ocean can radiate through humid air?
I think just like on land, it is slower, but does happen.
I’ve been looking for that Einstein quote. Now I have a copy. Thanks. 🙂
If you think only 150 watts of solar energy is absorbed you can think again. Tops of clouds average 3km above the ground. Direct solar 185 + diffused solar 75 = 260 watts is above the clouds. Then the 150 watts of solar energy absorbed with 20 convection makes surface 390 watts for Goodwin Creek. 240 + 260 = 500 watts solar input.
So SURFRAD stations
Is there a place/database of CO2 readings taken at or very near those same SURFRAD stations? So we can take the SURFRAD data and make a scatterplot against the corresponding CO2 data, and see if we get anything other than a random blob? I would think this would prove/disprove the CO2-controls-temperature once and for all, wouldn’t it?
Probably can’t do that. The instrument(s) is not sensitive enough. It’s not designed to be.
Spectroradiometric measurements out to the far IR would give much better wavelength resolution over the simple two-band SW-LW SURFRAD setups. But such an instrument does not exist.
And also, could we get simultaneous CO2 measurements for each radiation measurement we record? At the same, or nearly the same, location? I doubt it. Furthermore, is a CO2 measurement at the surface sufficient, or do I need to go all the way up to the top of the troposphere, recording measurements every 10,000 (1,000? 100?) m or so?
You request we read these 4 other posts as well. That’s 5 posts of conjecture. Does Wallis think we’ve never heard these arguments? It’s still just conjecture; like it was 54 years ago when this GHGE argument appeared in its current form. It is not science. Evidence will convince me. Another thought experiment, or appeal to authority will not. 54 years waiting for modelers to attempt to falsify their hypothesis. 54 years waiting for validations = careful, controlled studies showing the effect. Still waiting for it; 54 years later.
B: Why can’t I be convinced by speculation and conjecture?
A: Because I have empirical evidence against a greenhouse gas effect. Here it is:
1st. Here’s what I think GHGE fans claim:
1. Radiatively active gases, so-called greenhouse gases, GHG, mainly CO2 and H2O warm the surface of the earth by 32 C, on average, due to back radiation.
2. CO2 does ¼, 8C, and water vapor, WV, does ¾, ~24C. CO2 and WV are the 2 main greenhouse gases.
3. None of the main atmospheric gases (N2, O2, Ar), which make up over 99% of the atmosphere, warm the surface.
4. CO2 is the “forcing” gas due to its long atmospheric lifespan of at least 5 years. WV is not “forcing”, due to its short atmospheric lifespan of about 8 to 9 days. By “forcing”, they mean a change in CO2 is determinative; so much so that greater CO2 atmospheric concentrations lead to more WV, which leads to a warmer surface.
That, above, is conjecture. It is not The Science. The science is what we empirically observe.
Here is a GHGE falsification.
After arid regions of China were irrigated, WV in the atmosphere above must certainly have increased. Q: Did the resultant GHG back radiation (due to more WV) warm the surface below? A: No, or at least not nearly as much as the production of WV by evaporative cooling cooled the surface. In daytime, during the growing season, irrigated regions were over 6C cooler than adjacent, non-irrigated regions. More WV is associated with surface cooling, not warming. This study falsifies the GHGE effect.
ICE = irrigation cooling effect; LST = land surface temperature
See: Yang / Huang / Tang; 2019; ‘Irrigation cooling effect on land surface temperature across China based on satellite observations‘
Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135984
Pdf: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337836655
Mark, here’s John Christy of MSU satellite fame discussing the question. It’s nowhere near as clear-cut as you seem to think.
w.
Willis, did you mean to include a link?
Indeed I did. Thanks, fixed.
w.
Willis asked:
You need to justify these two values. Where do they come from. They are not real.
OLR exiting the surface most often leaves via the clouds – certainly via water vapour if it is present. So the surface radiation is not radiating directly to space. The energy that is eventually lost as OLR has worked its way up the atmospheric column in a myriad of ways. Very little OLR departs the surface directly to space over water, where the energy balance actually occurs.
Over tropical warm pools the “surface” radiated fluxes balance around 210W/sq.m but the OLR radiating surface is top of the clouds between 7 and 14km. Most of that heat worked its way up the column as sensible heat before exiting.
The attached table shows the measured surface insolation at moored buoys in the three tropical oceans when the buoys were each in a warm pool. Surface insolation ranged from 184W/sq.m to 223W/sq.m. The ToA OLR ranged from 215 to 235W/sq.m. These were for a month period.
You are far better off taking any EMR balance to the ToA than playing around with silly stuff like downwelling SW. It is just a fiddle. It is not real.
Willis! Please don’t fall for Gavin’s slight-of-hand, which he repeats <i>ad nauseum</i>.
“So there you have it. If you don’t think that downwelling LW radiation leaves the earth warmer than it would be <b>if there was no atmosphere</b>, you need to explain the mystery source of the additional energy necessary to keep the earth from freezing.”
We are trying to find the effect of the GHG’s and the change in concentration of GHG’s. We are not trying to compare an atmosphere with GHG’s with “no atmosphere at all”.
We trying to compare the status quo with an atmosphere with no GHG’s at all – that is at least a fair comparison.
Your calculation about absorbed radiation reaching the surface is relevant. The radiation reaching TOA is well above what reaches the surface. When GHG’s are removed far more radiation reaches the surface – essentially all of it would. In that condition, far more radiation is absorbed by the surface.
The amount of absorbed energy will never equal the radiation <i>from the surface </i>because a large amount of hot-surface-energy is convected to the air – certainly more than half. It is true that all radiation in and out of the TOA is measurable using radiation measuring device(s). That doesn’t help us measure what is going on immediately above the surface. The surface air is heated by the hot surface. The heated air rises and eventually (if there are some GHG’s) it is radiated into space. If there were no GHG’s, the air would be warmed and never cool – because it can’t (unless it is pulled against the surface).
Considering the convective heat transfer to the air at the surface might balance the surface equation. Ignoring it creates confusion.
My short response to this is:
1. Back radiation is evidence for a greenhouse effect, but is not the effect itself. It just represents the surface and lower atmosphere trying to come to thermal equilibrium, as thermodynamics shows they must tend.
2. There is an alternative explanation for Earth’s temperature being about 33C above that calculated for a black body in our orbit. It is the Diurnal Smoothing Effect (DSE) demonstrated in NASA’s DIVINER lunar data – and yes, the moon has no significant atmosphere but thermal buffering but the rock surface provides it.
I discuss these points and more in my Climate Confusion and Fear article on the front page of my legacy site http://brindabella.id.au.
The confusion comes from the lack of a meaningful definition of the GhE. Ie one that can lead to a calculation of its magnitude. If the energy “trapped” by GHGs was transmitted rapidly up to the upper atmosphere and radiated there would be minimal stored heat and consequent temperature rise. The critical issue is how long does this take.
If the GhE=33C assumption was correct this would imply, by somple undergraduate physics, a delay of 19 days. I list four distinct lines of evidence that it is just a few hours. This is a factor of about 200, which tallys with my detailed calculations and those of Nahle (2011).
Why is delay the issue? Imagine an exhibition building with people entering at the rate of one per minute and average stay of one hour. First person enters and by the time they leave 60 others have entered. An average exit rate of one per minute is established. The mean occupancy is remains at around 60. Translate body temperature to extra atmospheric temperature and you have the GhE.
No. Effects that make surface temperature more uniform in time or space can produce a certain amount of warming, but there is a well-defined limit to how much warming this can explain. Such smoothing can never raise the temperature above the effective radiative temperature Tₑ, defined by 𝜀𝜎⋅Tₑ⁴ = Savg, where Savg is the average insolation. For Earth, Tₑ is 30 to 33℃ colder than Earth’s observed temperature. DSE can explain warming up to Tₑ, but not warming beyond that.
I glanced at your article. The “the transit or delay time” is NOT the key to the GHE.
It’s extremely easy to get arguments about the role of time in thermodynamic systems wrong, and your essay seems to offer a creative example of that. Energy retention time does, in some sense, relate to temperature increase, but your reasoning about the issue is erroneous.
You might want to consider a long comment I wrote about the role of energy “residence time.” (See also this comment or this one offering an analogy of a river and a lake. These might help, though they don’t directly address the particular error you are making.)
Willis,
You wrote –
“If on an ongoing basis the surface is only absorbing 150 W/m2 of solar energy and is radiating 395 W/m2 of energy … why isn’t it frozen solid?”
A remarkably silly thing to say.
Much of the Earth’s surface is, indeed, frozen solid. Your silliness of conflating (apparently) w/m2 with measurements of temperature is just, well, silly.
The nonsensical approach of alarmists, blathering endlessly about averages and energy balances, is also just silly.
The Earth is not frozen where it absorbs sufficient energy to remain – unfrozen! Like, most of it.
If alarmist calculations show the temperature “should be” other than what is measured, then the calculations are wrong, wrong, wrong.
Air has a temperature. If you are surprised that the the temperature of about a ton of air sitting over every square foot of the surface beneath it can be measured, you need to learn some basic physics.
I find the entire treatment of atmospheric thermodynamics unsatisfactory. If I may try to simplify the process as described (and I may be wrong), incoming visible and some IR radiation heat the ground, which causes convection currents to carry the air aloft. IR emissions from the ground are intercepted by the greenhouse gases in a column of air whose density is steadily declining. The upward convecting air reaches an altitude where it can finally radiate to space, but also radiates back to the ground.
But the radiation going back to the ground (infrared) has to penetrate an atmosphere whose density is steadily increasing. How exactly does that work. The outgoing infrared was blocked by a steadily decreasing density atmosphere, but comes right back through one that is steadily increasing density?
Another aspect of the whole problem is the idea of “adiabatic lapse rate.” The term “adiabatic” refers to processes in which no heat (energy) enters or leaves a system. But the parcels of air convecting upward still contain greenhouse gases, and thus must be constantly radiating and absorbing energy. This is the opposite of adiabatic. And, oh, yes, since the air temperature for the convecting parcel is dropping, the amount of energy leaving the system will be constantly changing with respect to that being absorbed.
Though my career has been in rocket propulsion and space system engineering, my hobbies in the past decade have included the study of nuclear engineering, ranging from reactors to bombs. The degree of sophistication involved in the neutronics of either a reactor or a bomb (the two are way different) is very high, and was achieved in the pre-computer era. Atmospheric radiation transport phenomena involve all of the same issues, but I’ve seen very, very little of the same kind of sophistication in any global warming paper, or online discussion. If you have access to The Los Alamos Primer, read it. The atomic bomb was simple compared to “global warming,” but you’ll find the sophistication in that little book (used to brief incoming Manhattan Project scientists) rather breathtaking.
You are correct—climate modelers over-simplify this very complex subject.
The quality of this comment makes me wish there was a scale for upvoting/downvoting – 5 Stars!
The gap described in your last two paragraphs – between nuclear physicists and climate scientists includes respect: The nuclear scientists had a deep respect (and healthy fear) of the material they were studying and working with, as well as the implications of their work. Mainstream climate science, on the other hand, is brazenly disrespectful and cavalier. They use and abuse every aspect of their field, as well as every lever available to them.
Worse, these unqualified/disqualified scientists have coagulated with politicians and journalists of similar quality into worker bees performing various roles in the same noxious hive. Since their lack of integrity does not diminish their work ethic, their coordinated efforts have made their hive a real threat.
Have you actually read any real climate science papers?
I think you’re speaking out of some image of climate scientists as cartoon villains.
As a scientist who has worked in particle physics, quantum optics, and physical chemistry, but not in climate science, I don’t think you’re being fair. The climate science papers I’ve read seem to me to involve a far higher degree of sophistication than is consistent with this narrative.
I have made atmosphere density issue many times, along with the mean free path and the long time to emit a co2 photon compared to th short time to collision.
“The Los Alamos Primer”
Just ordered it. Thanks for the tip.
Online discussion and climate papers are two different worlds. I’ve seen a fair amount of sophistication in scientific climate papers. But, there is often a breath-taking lack of sophistication in online discussion.
Sometimes. Convection happens under some conditions, and not under others. And sometimes convection moves air through only a modest vertical range, while under other circumstances it shoots air (and water vapor) up into the stratosphere.
Sure.
While this statement has elements of truth, it’s really muddled.
While may be “upward convecting air”, the process of radiation reaching space is not necessarily dependent on this.
One way to think about this is that there are many “layers” in the atmosphere, and there are heat transfer processes between layers, and between the planetary surface and the various layers.
Convection (of sensible and latent heat) conveys heat away from the surface to the lowest layer of the atmosphere. Convection may further transfer heat between adjacent layers, within parts of the atmosphere where convection is active.
Longwave radiation also conveys heat between the surface and any layer of the atmosphere that absorbs that radiation. LW radiation also conveys heat between atmospheric layers. And, eventually some LW radiation is radiated to space.
Both convective and radiative processes affect temperatures throughout the troposphere.
At every point in the atmosphere, the amount of LW radiation emitted is proportional to the concentration of greenhouse gases and (more or less) the fourth power of the temperature of the air.
For lower layers of the air, much of the upward emitted LW radiation will be absorbed by a higher layer. But, at a certain altitude (that altitude depends strongly on the particular radiation wavelength) the air above is transparent enough that the radiation is likely to reach space.
You seem to have a mistaken mental model in which LW radiation is only emitted at certain locations in the atmosphere.
Yet, what actually happens is that every layer of the atmosphere is absorbing LW radiation from both directions and emitting LW radiation from both directions.
Ultimately, this is modeled by writing differential equations for the upward and downward fluxes of LW radiation at each point in the atmosphere.
The fluxes high in the atmosphere (where the atmosphere is relatively cool and LW fluxes are lower) are what determines how much LW radiation escapes to space.
The fluxes low in the atmosphere (where the atmosphere is relatively warm and LW fluxes are higher) is what determines how much LW radiation reaches the surface.
Make sense?
To model a process as “adiabatic” it is often sufficient that only relatively “small” amounts of heat energy are being gained or lost.
Atmospheric convection is sometimes termed “pseudo-adiabatic”, because the condensation and evaporation of moisture (i.e., interchange between latent and sensible heat) is an important part of the process, but it’s not technically adiabatic.
The magnitude of radiative heat flows in convecting air tend to be modest enough that an “adiabatic” or “pseudo-adiabatic” model still offers a pretty good description of much of the physics. I suspect it works to model the radiative processes as a “perturbation” on the more-or-less adiabatic process.
Bottom line: both convection and radiation matter, but the energies involved in convection can be enormous, and radiation doesn’t greatly distort the dynamics of convection.
Yes. And, there are equations that capture all this.
The details are usually omitted in popular accounts of how meteorology and the Greenhouse Effect work. But, that doesn’t mean that those working on the science don’t know how to deal with it.
The radiative physics aspect is, by physics standards, quite straightforward, even if it would appear complicated to someone who isn’t comfortable with a lot of math.
The complexity is of climate modeling is other aspects of the physics.
Does any of this help?
Willis, this dumb ol’ retired engineer thinks this is one fine post.
I see data from two sources and they agree quite well enough.
The squiggly lines on the graphs support your points.
The explanations are clear and easy to follow, even by me.
What’s not to like?
.
.
I’ve been paying attention to GW => AGW => CAGW => CC => ACC => CACC => …. Climate Catastrophe => ………….. Climate Collapse! since Big Al put out “An Inconvenient Truth” and proposed a Carbon Credit Exchange as the solution, which by happenstance, ALGore was heavily invested in.
Over the years, I’ve come to value WUWT that because it covered the political aspects of……… it’s Friday, 5/28/21 here……. who knows what it’s called today?
And I’ve also appreciated the fact that the efforts to really examine and figure out just WTH?!? is going on with the Earth’s climate are largely focused here and a few other places. And so I learn actual climate science.
I’ve been well aware of the food fight you warned of at the beginning of this post. But this particular post put all of the fuss (and fuzz) I’ve read about on this topic over the years into one nice, tidy, easily understandable package. This dumb ol’ engineer could easily read and comprehend it all.
Thank you. 👍
(Screw the typos and semantics arguments. The overall point and evidence is clear, at least to me.)
As I read all this about averages of averages of averages and simple linear algebra my head spins. We are dealing with energy and heat and a multitude of factors that all occur as a continuous function like sin waves. Daily (sun comes up, sun goes down), monthly, annually, solar cycles, ENSO, AMO and others.
We are never going to reach a definitive conclusion of anything by trying to find averages of time varying phenomena. It like trying to average sine and cosine waves with simple averages. Using statistics to analyze data points on a continuous function is useless also. We are not analyzing characteristics of unique independent data points from a population. Climate science is trying to statistically analyze a series of min and max values from various “frequencies” to try and arrive at a unique solution. That’s like trying to statistically analyze the min and max volumes over time of all the instruments in a Bach concert. The answer you get will tell you nothing.
I see some down votes. Perhaps those folks would like to tell us when they used plain old algebra and averages in their engineering thermodynamics or physics classes to do calculations. Mine always dealt with differentials and integrals based on time and exponential functions. Why is climate science any less exacting?
There are some people on all of the WUWT threads lately just going along and downvoting every comment by every skeptic, especially the ones that make some good points.
Denying accepted physics is not skepticism. One must replace it with something that makes physical sense, not just poorly supported statements about how things might work.
Well, Jim, why don’t you explain the difference between the average energy emitted at the surface of the earth from that emitted at TOA? You can only use generally accepted scientifically validated concepts and measurements, provisional or not.
There are numerous factors in the earth’s atmosphere other than radiation. This article only deals with radiation in a somewhat ,”ideal” situation. There has only been brief mention of other things like molecular collisions, convection/advection, lapse rate, and heat capacities, and specific heat.
Here is something to think about. What happens to the energy of a CO2 molecule ejected at 200 degrees from a burner as it transits to the stratosphere and it’s temperature drops? I know it is a hypothetical but it is an important part of convection.
That is why it is hard to deal with radiation at TOA. Radiation can disappear in the system and the energy used to perform “work” against gravity in convection.
Again, its a thought experiment on back radiation, not a treatise on the dynamics of the Earth’s oceans, land, ice and atmosphere which includes clouds. [The outer sphere radiates as a plate; both sides must have equal radiation emissions. The core absorbs the inward radiation.]
Both sides must radiate what radiation is absorbed. Incoming radiation is not divided by two and half goes out each side if the ppate. If a plate is at a given temp, it radiates the calculated amount out both sides.
Thanks, Jim. This might be clearer with an example.
Assume a one square metre plate in outer space that is receiving 470 W/m2 on one side. And assume that it is at steady-state, neither warming nor cooling. Thus, the amount it is radiating must equal the amount it is receiving.
Q1. At what rate (in W/m2) is it radiating?
Q2. Assuming it is a blackbody, what is its temperature?
Best regards,
w
At equilibrium the temperature of the body will be determined by the SB equation -> q = εσT⁴ which gives T = [{470/(1)(5.6697×10^-8)}]^¼ = 302 K.
Let me quote from Planck’s thesis on heat and radiation. (1)
(Bold by me.)
What does this all mean? It means a body at equilibrium radiates in all directions uniformly. So a body at 302 K radiates 470 w/m^2 in all directions. This applies to any homogenous isotropic substance with a volume. Total heat radiation is not divided by the number of surfaces a volume has.
(1) Title: The Theory of Heat Radiation
Author: Max Planck
Translator: Morton Masius
Try again, the body will be emitting at 235W/m^2 in all directions uniformly, therefore its temperature is ~254 K.
And the interior core heats up in response to the inner radiation of the outer core in the purely thought experiment.
Are you sure about that? The material of the inner core is already at a given temp. Molecules are both traveling faster and vibrating. Can a molecule of say CO2 absorb another unit of energy by moving even faster and vibrating at another level?
Find a reference that says this is true.
So how much slower surface cooling is back radiation from CO2 went it’s equivalent to -80C. No hotspot.?!
Weins displacement law shows the peak on a Planck curve. Things radiate without having to be on the peak. I radiate 15 micron without being in a cryogenic container.
Be careful. Planck curves are based on black body radiation, that is, an ideal body. If you believe that atoms and molecules have unique spectrums then you also must admit they are not black bodiescand don’t meet the curves exactly.
Astronomy would be hamstrung if everything radiates everywhere! How could you identify individual elements.
I separate the two. Blackbody curve and Planck curve. My Planck curve is derived from the Planck formula but applying emissivity of separate wavelengths. The curve varies according to the material studied and the temperature. I don’t apply an emissivity to the whole. That would make it a grey body. Blackbodies and grey bodies don’t exist. There are only non-grey bodies. SB calculations from others that put emissivity into the formula make me want to vomit.
It’s not “equivalent to -80℃.” That’s just a meme going around that is based on a stunning lack of understanding of thermal physics. I wrote an essay that unpacks this issue.
“There are lots of good arguments against the AGW consensus, but this…”
I did not click on these links and read them yet, although I am pretty sure I read two of them yesterday and all of them at various times…
But I can finish this sentence: “…is not one of them.”
For me, this topic and the arguments that ensue from it, represents a classic example of how difficult is is for people to be persuaded to change their mind, or to decide for themselves that perhaps they ought to learn more and then reevaluate their position or belief.
Personally, I came across this argument without knowing about it ahead of time, and knew right away that I had no way to decide which side of the argument was correct, or more correct.
And I also knew I was not gonna take a position on any of it until I not only knew exactly what the people having the argument were each saying and apparently believing, and then, at that point, finding out independently what the actual physics was, preferably from sources that had nothing to do with anything involving the atmosphere.
Laws of physics do not apply in one certain place only, or a single circumstance.
They are general rules for how the universe works.
They operate in the realm of objective reality.
The way I see it, the big problem we have today with the whole warmista problem, is that a bunch of people have decided that one certain thing must be true, therefore it is true, and have let that belief obscure every other tiny bit of contrary information. They are literally blind to anything that contradicts their one core belief.
It is the central paradigm of their entire worldview of the Earth, and of science, and hence of reality.
One cannot be a scientist if one makes up one’s mind about things and insisting on the correctness of that thing.
Cargo Cult Science: Richard Feynman On Believing What Isn’t True (fs.blog)
My other thought in this is, I think there are a lot of people who have never spent large amounts of time outside carefully observing the Earth and the sky and everything on it and in it.
Exactly!!! When I say, “My tinnitus sounds like a summer night, without the sudden silent pauses.” WE and probably you will know exactly what I mean, but how many others will get it? It helps if you grew up in a house with no air conditioning in Brazoria County, Texas (that’s just south of Houston).
“The way I see it, the big problem we have today with the whole warmista problem, is that a bunch of people have decided that one certain thing must be true, therefore it is true, and have let that belief obscure every other tiny bit of contrary information. They are literally blind to anything that contradicts their one core belief.”
That’s a pretty good description of the situation today.
Their beliefs about the “climate truth” (CO2 is a problem) certainly are not based on any evidence.
I know CO2 cools the planet. This is how.
Lovelock’s Gaia theory has it that life moves the conditions for life to some sort of optimum. This is wildly incorrect. Deserts and the arctic ice sheets are hardly optimum.
Instead, life moves everything to the edge of existence. If there is some parameter or resource in excess, and some form of life can take advantage of it, and in doing so decrease the availability of that parameter or resource, then it will, moving the conditions of existence even more towards the edge.
Right now, the edge of existence is coldness and lack of CO2. Artificially adding CO2 will mean those forms of life able to take advantage will do so, and by doing so, make things even colder for the rest of the biosphere.
Just my inexpert thought bubble.
Hi Willis,
“So there you have it. If you don’t think that downwelling LW radiation leaves the earth warmer than it would be if there was no atmosphere, you need to explain the mystery source of the additional energy necessary to keep the earth from freezing.”
I think your quote above has encouraged the conflation of two questions, which has confused this discussion thread:
1) Is the earth warmer with an atmosphere than without one?
2) Does adding CO2 to the atmosphere raise surface temperatures?
These are entirely different questions which are best answered separately.
The first question is easy to answer. An atmosphere made up of non-radiative gasses will increase the earth’s temperature because of the extra mass of the atmosphere. During the day, sunlight warms the surface plus the atmosphere – so there is more warmed mass which will take longer to cool during the night than if the atmosphere did not exist. That is a simple concept and does not prove the greenhouse effect exists.
The second question is more complicated. If you have some combustion and replace one molecule of O2 in the atmosphere with one molecule of CO2, what will happen to the long term temperature? A molecule of CO2 is more massive than an O2 molecule, so by adding mass to the atmosphere, you will increase temperatures because of the mass effect described above. However, CO2 happens to be a radiative gas which means it tends to absorb and emit more radiation than a non radiative gas such as O2. Since CO2 emits radiation isotropically (in all directions), then some will go upwards and be lost to space. So, intuitively, the total system will lose more heat energy to space than if the CO2 molecule did not exist. This would imply the total system would have a lower temperature because of the introduction of the CO2 molecule.
However, I’m sure you would argue that the extra downward emissions from the CO2 molecule would warm the surface more and that is what is important in the greenhouse effect discussion. If you do argue this, then if the temperature of the total system goes down due to the CO2 molecule emitting to space, but the surface temperature goes up due to the downward emissions, then the temperature of the atmosphere must be lower than it was before the CO2 molecule entered the atmosphere?
Here is where the answer to the second question becomes more contentious. Just because a CO2 molecule emits some radiation to the surface, it does not mean the temperature of the surface will change one iota. For example, if you have an object at 100 degrees C and introduce another object at 100 degrees C, the temperature of the first object does not go up one iota … despite the arrival of the new emissions. Temperatures are not additive. So, how do you prove that the temperature of the surface increases when the emitting CO2 molecule has a lower temperature than the surface? Please don’t answer this by saying that it slows the cooling of the surface, because then you would be conflating the two questions above again. Try to form a hypothesis that does not rely on the mass effect, which does slow cooling, rather than the greenhouse effect, which does not. Because a new CO2 molecule is a radiative gas, some of that radiation goes to space when it did not before. It is therefore arguable that the new CO2 molecule would in fact have have a cooling effect.
Best regards
Bernard,
All of that is in line with a lot of my thinking also.
First question, I disagree with your answer, because you have not defined where you are measuring temperature. If you are measuring ground temperature, I think you have it the wrong way round. If you add an atmosphere (with a low thermal capacity) you get less heat effect than if you use another layer of earth which has much more mass and more thermal capacity. But I assume that you then want people to live at the new surface and measure temperature there.
The second question for me comes back to a summary of what CO2 actually does. Theory says it can capture IR radiation and move to a more energetic state, which can be synonymous with a heat increase if you measure temperature. (This is like Callendar did). But then, the CO2 will typically emit radiation, but when and under which conditions? Does the gas mixture surrounding CO2 have to be cooler before emission happens? Is emission blocked if surroundings are hotter? Or does excited CO2 emit spontaneously at random times? How long does a CO2 molecule in a typical case remain excited? Does it remain excited long enough to move from just above Earth’s surface to several km up where an emission can make it to space?
Several years of my science life were in spectoroscopy, but that episode was mainly with atomic not molecular, so I am somewhat undereducated to be discussing CO2. I see a big problem is upon us because there has been so little experimentation. In my days, you tried to devise experiments with cause and effect simplified to the max to avoid exogenous variables. So did many scientific forebears, hence expressions like the age of ‘sealing wax and string’. Where are the present day simple experiments to measure, with our modern superb instrumentation, just how much temperature change a gas shows when IR is passed through it?
Here I am on side with Ric Will who favours getting measurements out of the weeds of the surface of the Earth and going to top of atmosphere. I have been since about 1992 quite critical of the use of traditional weather station observations designed for purposes like farming and aviation, to be used for all-earth modelling. They are mostly too inaccurate or not adequately relevant to the modelling use, as colleagues and I have been stating – like Bill Johnston at bomwatch.com.au blog, noting the exogenous effect of rain on temperatures measured that way. Geoff S
IIRC, an “excited” CO2 molecule will transfer the vibrational energy via collisions with other atmospheric molecules quicker than it reradiates the energy. The impacted molecule will rise in temperature from the received collisional energy. That temperature rise will increase the IR emitted by the impacted molecule.
“That temperature rise will increase the IR emitted by the impacted molecule.”
Unless it’s O2 or N2 in which case there will be no extra IR emitted.
Dude. More energy > hotter. Please engage brain before opening mouth.
Thanks Geoff,
I was assuming the temperature was being measured at the current surface level and then adding an atmosphere to that. I was not comparing the thermal capacity of surface vs atmosphere.
On the second question of what happens when you deduct O2 and add CO2 to that atmosphere, I actually have done some simple experiments that I will describe below in an answer to Charles Cemenzuli below.
Hi Bernard,
To clear up your first question – ” 1. Is the earth warmer with an atmosphere than without one?”
This can be explained very clearly by looking at all the planets with an atmosphere and seeking for the common denominator.
Essentially it can be seen that an atmosphere of any composition, green house gases or inert being irrelevant, will create a temperature gradient due to the compressive forces generated by the planets gravity. look up Charles and Boyle’s laws.
This temperature gradient has its origin (base point) at the radiative surface, which is in equilibrium with the incoming solar radiation, in earths case this is -18*C. From this point the compression effect due to gravity calculates to be the adiabatic lapse rate. If this rate is extrapolated from the radiative surface in the atmosphere it gives the earth’s surface temperature as it does for all planets with an atmosphere.
A study, one of many, highlights the gravitation pressure causes the rise often attributed to the GHE.
See this example – https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/n-z-paper.pdf
The calculation is consistant for all the planets irrespective of teh chemical composition of the atmosphere.
Therefore if the gravitational induced thermal gradient accounts for all the heating experienced in the atmosphere, then by default there can’t be any practical heating from some hypothetical and unproven GHE.
It is not a matter of proving or disproving the GHE, if the heating can be accounted for by some other process there can’t be any heating from some other process. the GHE may exist, but from the above it could be that the GHE is so insignificant that it is not in the order of magnitude to have any effect. It may well be a second order and insignificant process , if it exists.
However, if there is a mechanisim of heating caused by the GHE, I would like to see an experiement performed that exhibits this effect. Todate there has not been such an experiement and the process has not been proven. Full stop.
I welcome comments after having read the link, otherwise thanks anyway.
Thanks Charles.
I have read several papers discussing that temperature is due to gravity compressing the atmospheric gases. I have to admit I don’t understand the logic of those papers. For example, when I pump up a bicycle tire, the temperature does increase as the pressure increases, but when I stop pumping, the temperature drops back down again, even though the temperature does not. Similarly, a planet with an atmosphere at a certain pressure would have a different temperature depending on how close it is to the sun? I would love it if you could explain the concept to me in a way that does not require advanced math knowledge.
On your second point of wanting to see an experiment that demonstrated heat being caused by downward CO2 emissions, I would love to see the same thing. I have personally done a simple experiments that I think prove the opposite … that CO2 emissions could not warm the surface.
In this experiment, I placed an object with a temperature of X next to an object with a temperature of Y and and then measured to see if the temperature of Y went up. The results were predictable. If the temperature of X was warmer than Y, then the temperature of Y went up. If X was cooler than Y, the temperature of Y did not go up. This happened for all possible temperatures of X and Y. I started with Y being significantly cooler than X and then raised the temperature of Y by one degree each time to see if it increased the temperature of X when I introduced it. For every temperature of Y that was below X, introducing the object Y did not increase the temperature of X. But, as soon as the temperature of Y was higher than the temperature of X, introducing the Y object did increase the temperature of X every time.
This proves that none of the temperatures of Y that were lower than X were able to raise the temperature of X. If you think about this, it proves that an object with a lower temperature does not increase the temperature of the warmer object, OR EVEN SLOW IT’S COOLING!
Best regards
None of that is an appropriate analog to what is claimed to happen in Earth’s climate.
* * *
Instead, try this: get a fixed-wattage electric heater, put it, along with a remote-read thermometer, in a styrofoam cooler. Instead of a top, put plastic wrap over the top to prevent air flow out.
Let the system run until there is a steady-state temperature.
Now place a reflective mylar film behind the plastic wrap. Measure the steady-state temperature.
Then, place another reflective mylar film behind the first layer, with some separation. Measure the steady-state temperature inside again.
If you can, measure the temperature of the mylar film. (Maybe just touch it to try to get a rough sense?)
Each time you add a layer that impedes thermal radiation from leaving, the temperature should rise.
This will happen even if the outer layer is cooler than the air inside the cooler
If you think it’s unfair to use a reflector, try using a sheet of heavy black paper instead.
* * *
You could also try reading my essay Atmospheric Energy Recycling, which offers the math to show how of cool atmospheric layers can warm a planetary surface. Or, read the blog posts Willis wanted us to read.
Consider a highly simplified system consisting only of the surface and a CO2 molecule.
Imagine that the surface absorbs and re-emits every photon it receives and that the CO2 molecule absorbs every photon the surface emits. Further assume that of the photons the CO2 molecule absorbs it re-emits half upward to space and half downward to the surface.
That means that for every two photons the surface receives from the sun it receives another from the CO2 molecule and thus must emit three molecules for every two it absorbs from the sun directly. Without the CO2 molecule it would need to emit only two. This tells us the surface is warmer with the molecule than without it.
The number of photons the molecule emits to space equals the number the surface receives directly from the sun: energy is conserved. But at the surface the same energy is “counted” one and a half times.
Hi Joe,
It sounds like you think all photons increase the temperature of what ever they hit? They don’t. All photons are not created equal.
Photons only increase the temperature of an object they hit if the source of the photon is warmer than the object that the photon hits.
For example: ice cubes give off photons so, how many ice cubes would it take to boil a cup of water?
We’ll have to agree to disagree about your view of physics.
Willis, I feel sorry for you in that your effort to educate people fall on so many deaf ears. It seem that peoples’ natural distrust of CliSciFi practitioners’ twisting science to serve a political master has led them to deny basic physics concepts. Somehow it appears that CliSciFi’s twisting of feedback concepts to get 3X CO2 warming has made some people deny the existence of LW downward radiative propagation from the atmosphere (including clouds) to the Earth’s surface.
I don’t know what else to say except than I am appalled at what I have read up to 10:45 PM PDT.
Dave,
I for one have no doubt that radiation from photon emission of an energetic molecule is isotropic in all but unusual circumstances that do not apply here. I suspect most bloggers here agree. However, that does not eliminate the very many questions that still cause confusion some 50 years+ of research down the track. Some of us wonder why there has not been a single, simple, seminal paper concluding with an estimate of climate sensitivity to CO2. Some of us wonder at the absence of a single, simple, step-by-step explanation of the parts played by each component involved in greenhouse gas theory. Such people are here, IMO, expressing confusion and consternation about how incomplete the big GHG picture seems to be. Geoff S
Geoff, there is no confusion as to the operation of the misnamed GHGs. Because of the confusion caused by the inability of UN IPCC CliSciFi climate models to include all of the actual climatic operations occurring in the oceans, on the land and within the atmosphere we have a whole ideology (with Marxism thrown in) and industry built upon feared catastrophe. Denying physics does not help counter CliSciFi lies. It gives ammunition to the liars.
Dave Fair: Another Willis groupie.
And proud of it!
Haha! 🙂
You’re just jealous because no one will be your groupie. 😉
Typo: “…heat lost gained and lost…”
As this post is addressing easily confused people, better no typos…
The concept of back radiation is easily shown by looking in the sky and seeing the moonlight.
So back radiation is an easily provable concept.
Both light and IR radiate back.
It is easy to see that this second lot of energy would have very little warming activity but it must have some.
–
This one easily observable fact alone should demolish the notion that back radiation does not exist.
–
Yes, the moon does warm the earth, it has been measured. But the moon is hotter than the Earth and that warmth on the moon is caused by the SUN.
In fact what are the W/m2 coming off the surface of the moon at it’s maximum daytime temperature and where is it in the atmosphere balance calculations?
The amount of energy involved from moonshine (pun intended) is below the uncertainty of the other energy flows in, within, and out of the massive energy flows of Earth’s climate systems.
Have you worked out the Radiation energy flux of the moon’s surface at 390K?
Which is 100K higher than the earth’s surface.
I have no interest in and will not do any calculations, radiative or otherwise. It makes no difference due to the distances involved.
Where in the Radiation calculations in a vacuum is the “distance” incorporated?
I seem to have missed it.
Yes indeed. You did miss the whole concept of “view factor”, which is a very basic concept in radiative heat transfer.
Why doesn’t it apply to our atmosphere then?
The view factor of our atmosphere to the surface is 1.0. That is, all the surface “sees” is the atmosphere. Since multiplication or division by 1 does not change the value, it is often left out of the equations.
By contrast, the view factor of the sun to the earth is so close to 0 (about 0.000002 by quick calculation), it is often just treated as a point source.
Yet a distant star just doesn’t seem to heat like our local star.
Ask Greta, she understands this stuff
🤣
The behaviour of radiation has got to be consistent – and if a theory fails on a simple example, then it’s wrong (to misquote Feynman)
The GHE assumes that the radiation flux from the Sun is added to that of the radiation flux from GH gases and the result is an increase in temperature of the Earth’s surface from -18C to +14C.
Short summary of the GHE central process: two or more sources can create a temperature at a target greater than any single source can create at the same target.
It is easy to see how that cannot be true; take the following example:
Therefore, we have the situation where a source of 35C is able to increase the temperature of another object from 40C to 42C.
That cannot happen – and if it cannot be seen how that is impossible, I give up.
The conclusion is as follows:
Radiation fluxes cannot be added together to create higher temperatures than any one flux can create on its own. Further, there are no known experiments or demonstrations that show such an effect.
BTW: the Sun was used as one of the sources to deal with some GHE supporters claiming that the Sun is in a different “frame of reference” or something – and therefore not subject to the normal laws of thermodynamics.
“Therefore, we have the situation where a source of 35C is able to increase the temperature of another object from 40C to 42C.”
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There are 2 sources of heat in your example yet you only focus on the effect of one with your set and conveniently forget example.
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Lets take a bowl of soup heated first by your heat source which only puts enough energy in to raise it to 25C.
Lets say it is a Bunsen burner
Take it outside and the sun puts enough energy into it to raise it to 40C.
Do both together.
You are getting energy from 2 sources.
The heat of the soup may go up to 42 C.
Take the bowl back inside, cool down and apply the burner again result 25C.
Now add a second Bunsen Burner.
Result increased temp say 27 degrees but certainly more than 25C.
2 sources of energy gives extra energy and more heat.
You are confusing the energy derived from the source to the temperature of the source.
The sun for instance temp 5,505 °C is only raising the temperature 20 C, A small energy input from a very hot source and also, though you did not mentioned it, responsible for most of the ambient temp of 20C or 293K.
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Sorry I don’t follow your example at all – I have no idea what it is trying to prove or where it is going. I don’t follow the logic at all.
Are you saying that in my example the target will raise from 40C to 42C or not?
That is the critical question.
If you think it does, I have nothing more to say and suggest you try something like it for yourself as a practical exercise before you say any more.
If not, my example stands.
Are you saying that in my example the target will raise from 40C to 42C or not?
That is the critical question.
You cannot ask for an answer to a question when you have been deliberately vague in describing a situation.
A local heat source of 35 C is a fairly meaningless descriptor.
So is a target object that is warmed from 20 to 25 C by it.
Is it a glass of water or a swimming pool?
At least that would help you explain what you mean by a 35C heat source..
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Lets take a silly example!
The solar pool heating through pipes on the roof to the pool.
Sun heats water to 40 degrees [shallow pool I guess] Sun heats water in pipes to 60 degrees , Pool heats to 42 degrees. QED
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Or a sensible one.
Hot water heater at 35 degrees C the temp of the heater, not the amount of heat it puts out[ which depends on the size of the heater].
Next to a glass of water taking it from 20 to 25 C.
Take the roof of the building and let the overhead sun shine in warming the room to at least 40 C.
The room will be slightly warmer than 40 C because it is getting both the heat from the water heater and the sun.
Two sources.
The water will get to 42 degrees, it is 5 degrees warmer than a glass of water in an unheated room.
It is now getting two lots of heat one from a source whose temp but not output is 35 C and one from a source whose temp is 5500C but output is enough to raise the temp 20 from base. The glass of water is not at base temp due to the heater.
QED.
Please no more. I have no idea what you are talking about, I cannot follow your arguments at all. To date you’ve mentioned soup, Bunsen burners, solar pool heating through pipes, a glass of water, the roof of a building, a room and so on – and none of it make any sense.
Please understand there are only two ways to increase the temperature of anything:
That’s it – there are no other methods.
If you think there are – you will have joined the Perpetual Motion people.
Let’s leave it there and the readers (if there are any left at this point) can figure out which one of us is lost.
Zap it with a laser or a microwave?
Start an exothermic chemical reaction?
I don’t think you’ve thought this through. Your list is not anywhere near complete.
Or, remove the influence of a body at a lower temperature.
For example, if you are outside in wintertime, put a reflective “emergency blanket” between you and the cold environment. It’s fine if that emergency blank is a temperature lower than your body temperature.
* * *
Basically adding a LW-absorbing atmosphere removes some of the influence of space, which acts like a 3 K radiator.
Putting cold air between the planetary surface and space can produce a net warming because that cold air is so much warmer than what the surface would otherwise be “seeing.”
Your model is not correct. Two problems.
Using Bunsen burners is not the same as radiation, they primarily work through conduction/convection of the hot gas formed through a chemical reaction. If you place the Bunsen burners far enough away from your bowl so that radiation is the only heat transmission variable, you’ll probably never see a measurable temperature gain.
You are also heating an intermediate substance, the bowl, that contains the soup. Of course the soup will reach the same temp as the bowl, but through conduction/convection, not radiation.
Thanks Jim for considering the examples.
No problems.
Zagzigger did not specify, amongst a lot of things, what type of heat source he was using or how it worked.
Using Bunsen burners, a hot water bottle, a radiator etc, etc .
those three examples are conduction , convection and radiation.
all achieve the same effect.
Raising the temperature of the target because it absorbs extra energy from the extra energy input.
The target is warmer because of the source.
The source does not go away when you expose the target to sunshine or warm it by convected warmer air.
the target warms up more than the surroundings because it has a second active heat input.
This is where Zagzigger throws in the confusion.
With a steady single source all objects will warm to the laws of physics to the right balance for that substance.
but add another power source and it has to warm to the combined power source.
Back radiation.
bunsen’s.
whatever.
The argument is not about what temperature things settle to with a single source
It is about if multiple heat sources exist
If back radiation exists it has to be taken into account
The moon does not go black at night in a full eclipse
you can still see it by reflected earth shine.
Each water molecule is a little moon.
Imagine if there were millions of millions of them reflecting nearly half their heat back.
Not much?
now imagine that effect multiplied a million million times as that was only the skin layer of the earth.
How much of an effect would that be?
Already known and works according to the rules of back radiation
Called the GHG effect.
The conclusion of your explanation is that when considering radiation only, heat is only transferred in one direction, hot to cold. A cold object does not radiate sufficient energy to “raise” the temperature of the hot object. It can only reduce the gradient, i.e., the speed with which the hot body’s temperature reduces. In other words, “dT/dt” is smaller but remains positive. The only way to raise the temperature of the hot body is to make “dT/dt” negative, and you can only do that if T2 in the equation (T1 – T2) becomes larger than T1.
I see where your confusion is.
there are objects which are losing energy.
Having been heated but having no energy source.
Your example would be fine.
Both would constantly lose energy at a reduced gradient.
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What you refuse to see is we are talking about power sources where the temp of one cannot drop.
Got it?
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The second object, by dint of the first, now becomes a second smaller power source because it now gives some power back to the first object.
–
Hence the first power source can actually become hotter than what it started out at.
–
Clear?
No it doesn’t work that way. If anything, the earth is the power source for the atmosphere.
And the atmosphere returns the favor.
Yes exactly Zigzagger
If pyrgeometers actually do what everyone has convinced themselves that they do do, why do us humans bother with coal, oil, gas, nuclear, biomass etc et.
Why don’t we just rip the ‘sensor’ out of these things, put them somewhere outside (or does that even matter) and harvest all this downwelling energy
You/me/no-one can generate an electrical signal, any signal, simply by placing a ‘black-painted object under the sky.
Pyrgeometers are single-ended heat-engines. Thus nonsense
Even Willis himself says as much.
He tells us that heat energy does not flow from cold objects to warmer ones
The atmosphere at whatever altitude you care and due in no small part to Lapse Rate, is always colder than anywhere & everywhere below it.
Including the insides of pyrgeometers
The only truly black object would be something with a temperature of Zero Kelvin
Black Paint doesn’t make the grade
There is no flow from sky to dirt. Thus, there is no ‘net flow’
~~~~
Willis tell us that ‘most substances have near unity emissivity‘
Bollox
The Major Players in all this have very low emissivities ## and thermal conductivities
That is why the air near the surface, where we put thermometers. is as warm as it is
The biggest blindness is surely:
If all the Earth’s atmospheric energy is moving around via radiation, what exactly is left to power “Emergent Phenomena”?
Not just thunderstorms and other big-boy toys.
An imperceptiblely gentle breeze would also count – while being capable of moving huge amounts of heat energy over very large distances, exactly because of the low emissivity & conductivity.
There is your Trapped Heat.
Trapped by low conductivity and low emissivity.
Not trapped between, what effectively are, 2 mirrors facing each other
Simple enough experiment:
Strip off in front of a full length mirror
Do you feel colder or warmer?
You feel colder.
Clothes (and atmospheres) do not keep you warm via ‘radiation’
## Oxygen Nitrogen combined = 0.02
CO2 at atmospheric temps & pressure and to 3 decimal places = 0.000
Do you know how a pyranometer works?
How does your radio work?
Peta of Newark
I ask people to QUOTE MY EXACT WORDS, specifically because there are always charming folks like you who want to twist what I say. I said NOTHING about some mystery object called “heat energy”.
Heat is the NET flow of energy flowing spontaneously from warmer objects to cold objects.
Radiative energy, on the other hand, is emitted by all solid objects and most gases. It just gets radiated by one object and eventually absorbed by another object regardless of their temperatures.
Note, however, that the NET flow of radiative energy is ALWAYS from hot to cold as required by the Second Law.
Stop twisting my words to fit your thought processes. QUOTE MY EXACT WORDS!
~~~~
“Very low emissivities”?? Sorry, not true in the slightest.
My bible for many things climatish, including the emissivity (which is equal to the absorptivity) of common substances, is Geiger’s The Climate Near The Ground, first published sometime around the fifties when people still measured things instead of modeling them. He gives the following figures for IR emissivity at 9 to 12 microns:
and so on down to things like:
You can see why the error from considering the earth as a blackbody in the IR is quite small.
I must admit, though, that I do greatly enjoy the idea of some boffin at midnight in his laboratory measuring the emissivity of common substances when he hears the snap of the mousetrap he set earlier, and he thinks, hmmm …
Alternatively, you could look here, where it says:
Regards,
w.
“I must admit, though, that I do greatly enjoy the idea of some boffin at midnight in his laboratory measuring the emissivity of common substances when he hears the snap of the mousetrap he set earlier, and he thinks, hmmm …”
There is a complete field of science regarding Reflectance and integrating spheres. NASA has a list of substances and so does Johns Hopkins.
However, you are quite right about emissivity of common substances being close to blackbodies.
Your method of applying an average emissivity to substances differs from mine, where I apply emissivity to individual wavelengths and then integrate.
There is a difference, albeit a small one. You may be satisfied to measure things with a tape measure. I prefer to measure things with a vernier.
Thanks, Alexy. You are 100% correct. However, since I’m interested in things like the overall average emissivity of the earth’s surface of a 1° latitude x 1° longitude gridcell, it’s like I’m measuring a house … and for that, I use a tape measure, not a vernier.
My best to you,
w.
At last, someone talking sense.
Zagzigger, do you deny reality out of a warped sense of humor? You are ‘not even wrong.’ I’m just going to skip over your comments on any and all forums.
Yep. The beauty of this thread is that it has let me identify who I can safely ignore.
w.
Anyone accepting the contrived ‘proofs’ of these kooks is left dumber than before. Denying the existence of physical facts is not a good way to start an argument. Whether energy penetrates 100 meters in the ocean or 1 millimeter doesn’t change the fact that the ocean is receiving energy is just one example.
“Yep. The beauty of this thread is that it has let me identify who I can safely ignore.”
Yep. Anyone with a grasp of thermodynamics.
I am in agreement with this assessment.
Dave Fair puts his hands over his ears and goes lalalalalalalala!
Actually it works sometimes.
Only when Big Brother is on the viewscreen.
You’ve distorted the GHE beyond recognition, so of course you can disprove it. That’s not the “GHE central premise.” That’s a “straw man” cartoon distortion of the GHE.
That’s where you are going wrong.
The Sun does not inherently create any particular temperature “at a target.”
It imparts energy at a certain rate to that target.
The temperature of the target will then be determined by how hot it needs to get to overcome the “thermal resistance” between it and whatever heat sink is cooling it.
If there is little thermal resistance, the temperature will be low.
If there is more thermal resistance, the temperature will be higher.
This principle applies to houses, when you increase the amount of insulation, for a fixed rate of heating (without a thermostat).
It also applies when something impedes the radiant loss of heat.
That is the GHE.
Here’s a known experiment which proves you wrong:
Take a thermocouple and put in gas turbine and measure the temperature, then surround the ThC with a quartz tube and measure the temperature. The measured temperature will increase as a result of replacing the cooler inner wall of the gas turbine with the quartz tube which will be hotter than the wall but cooler than the ThC. It’s known as a Radiation Compensating thermocouple.
Check out https://www.jstor.org/stable/26174404?seq=1
Planck was at his wits end working on the UV catastrophe problem of Maxwell radiation. That problem was a 600lb gorilla under the carpets of academia for years. His constant h , means hilfe, help! The world was never the same again!
That quantum later called photon is taken very seriously by Einstein. Radiation involves photon momentum. Einstein’s insight in 1917 seems to have gone right by most.
Here is the original paper (english) :
Zur Quantentheorie der Strahlung – INSPIRE (inspirehep.net)
No need of assumptions about a big bang, nor any modern popular embellishment.
Einstein wrote there :
….During absorption and emission of radiation there is also present a transfer of momentum to the molecules; this means that just the interaction of radiation and molecules leads to a velocity distribution of the latter. This must early be the same as the velocity distribution which molecules acquire as the result of their mutual interaction by collisions, that is, it must coincide with the Maxwell distribution. we must require that the mean kinetic energy which a molecule (per degree of freedom) acquires in a Plank radiation field of temperature T be kT 2 ; this must be valid regardless of the nature of the molecules and independent of frequencies which the molecules absorb and emit. In this paper we wish to verify that this far–reaching requirement is, indeed, satisfied quite generally; as a result of this our simple hypotheses about the emission and absorption of radiation acquire new supports…..
What is ironic, is that Maxwell´s distribution is used to refute Maxwell´s radiation theory and solve a major physics problem. Talk about scientific jiu jitsu! What a mind!
The solar flux to Earth is more by 90W/m2 every northern hemisphere winter and there is no runaway greenhouse catastrophe, so why some people get their knickers in a twist over a potential reduction of surface ULWR to space of 3W/m2 even with a doubling of CO2 to 800ppm seems a bit strange.
The most important energy flow is not up and down here. It is the heat transport to the Arctic. You need to integrate all energy flows all over the earth over a year to find the energy balance of the Earth that year. I guess that is impossible. In Missisippi there should be missing energy in the vertical direction because you have a loss to the North (the Arctic).
Thanks, Kristian. The movement of heat horizontally is called “advection”, and as you point out, overall it is from the tropics to the poles.
However, Goodwin Creek Mississippi is right about at the inflection point in the transfer. As a result, it receives (not loses but receives) about 1.6 W/m2 from the tropical zones. Here’s the map showing average advection flux.
Best regards,
w.
“Once again, the crazy idea that downwelling longwave radiation (DLR, also called infra-red or IR, or “greenhouse radiation”) can’t heat the ocean”
IR cant penetrate water, it can only cause the top new microns to warm. This warming cant penetrate down because of the cool layer, thus it cant heat the ocean.
It can cause the ocean to retain more heat, heat it obtained form shortwave though.
Dams, bricks and water. You can raise the lip of the dam with bricks, and cause it to retain more water.
Shortwave solar radiation can’t penetrate rock, it can only cause the top few microns to warm. This warming can’t penetrate down because of the cool layer below, this it can’t heat the rock.
This is why rocks in the desert do not get hot on a summer day…
Huh?
I happen to live in a semi desert that is hot and dry in the summer, the rocks on the surface do get hot!
Oh, did I forget my [/sarc] tag? Sorry!
I was simply using the equivalent logic of people who claim that because LWIR is absorbed in the top surface layer of water, it cannot affect the temperature of the water. And yes, that argument is also ridiculous.
Better get a tune-up on your sarcasm detector, Tommy.
Having a rocky day of it…..
Rock doesnt evaporate. Your analogy is stupid.
Moist soil has evaporative cooling as well as the conductive/convective and radiative cooling that a dry rock has. It absorbs solar radiation in the top surface layer. But it gets hotter significantly below this depth in the sun each day.
He said rock, not soil, but in any case, visible light does penetrate, and warm, water, to a temperature higher than that of the surface air temp, 3 C higher on average.
It is the evaporative cool layer that totally halts the ability of IR to warm water. Its just physics, you cant get round it.
Please re-read my post entitled “Radiating The Ocean“. It gives four separate arguments why downwelling longwave does indeed leave the ocean warmer than it would be without it. You need to counter all four of those argument to make your case. Please show your logic etc. Saying “It’s just physics, you cant get round it” is MEANINGLESS without specifics of which physics and why.
w.
Matthew:
Evaporative losses are just a third mode of thermal loss, in addition to conductive/convective and radiative. If you have them, they compensate a little more for incoming power flux, but it’s completely wrong to say that “it totally halts the ability of IR to warm water.”
You can boil water with an LWIR laser. If you were correct, this would not be possible.
Radiation heats matter.
Heated matter radiates.
So cause-effect inversions are easy if you snatch at atmospheric data with a preconceived intention of what you will “find”.
Cause-effect inversions are everywhere in the warmist CAGW narrative, they are its most consistent feature.
For example – a recent paper measures an increase in downwelling IR.
So increasing CO2 is increasing downwelling IR and the CO2 back-radiation theory is confirmed! The job’s a good-un!
Or … just possibly … the atmosphere has warmed for an unknown reason (throughout history it continually warms and cools for unknown reasons).
And this warmer atmosphere is radiating more IR – because it’s warmer!
Hatter,
Referred to as ‘reverse causation’. First explained to me in the context of lead (Pb) poisoning of children. One theory says that some children who ingest Pb have a later impairment to their IQ. Reverse causation says that some children with mental impairment ingest Pb from places like old Pb paint on putty around widow glass, more than kids with normal IQ do.
Millions after millions of $$$ were spent trying to support the first hypothesis. Very little was spent on the latter. Outcome – everyone now knows that Pb poisons children, even at the tiny levels that used to be in gasoline, so industry is ordered to take the tetra-ethyl lead knock improver out of gasoline or else.
Science itself has got sick from people pushing contested ideas and cornering the funding. Often done by claiming it will cause the end of the earth, or death to small children, or anything else that invokes that horrible ‘precautionary principle’.Geoff S
If the world had an opaque atmosphere with an emitting and absorbing surface 10 km up, similar emissivity and absorbing 150 Wm-2 and emitting 150 Wm-2, that surface would be 236 K. According to a dry adiabatic lapse rate, the atmosphere at the solid surface would be 334 K – only about 300 K if estimated from the average temperature gradient observed. Far from freezing but 0 incoming radiation energy and emitting 600 Wm-2.
I appreciate that there still must be radiative transfer of energy or there wouldn’t be convection and the actual solid surface would be 0 K – its far from a model of Earth – but hopefully you understand why its not as straight forward as you argue.
On my far-from-right-or-even-useful model, doubling of the gas making it opaque would double the height of the effective radiating surface above the solid surface and increase the temperature near the ground by another 100 degrees, so I’m not arguing that there is no GHE. Its irrelevant that the incoming radiation is SW or LW in this world, a bit like Venus.
An explanation why earth absorbs 150 watts of incoming solar energy and emits much higher amount of 395 watts. Compression heating is 98 watts, latent heat 87 watts and 61 watts is max to min. For Goodwin Creek Solar input averages 615 watts (not SW + LW) 55.3/90*1001=615 x emissivity 0.63 = 390 watts. When you average solar input over where no sunlight. Making the average 4x lower your fudging the real energy absorbed. The device measuring downwelling is measuring air emitting energy as as it decreases w/ height and appears at 850hpa level (well measured level).
The original more correct NASA energy budget chart sends a lot more energy directly into the surface, as the real sun does on the lit half of the planet, it does not contain any back radiation { perpetuum mobile energy amplifier}. That was invented later by alarmist mathemagicians to justify their antropogenic warming claims.
The key flaw is they turned the earth flat and divided sun radiation evenly over the whole planet surface including the night side, everything is wrong from there.
Superficially plausible if one assumes the atmosphere (including clouds) radiates in only one direction. What would the diagram look like at nighttime?
The yellow SW arrow on “absorbed by atmosphere” continues around the corner down turned LW red and width of LW red shows amount of LW radiation heading down from atm. to “absorbed by land and oceans” so Eben cannot understand Eben’s own posted diagram does contain back radiation.
I have hard time following your words ,
Are you possibly saying the short “orange” line at 45 degrees on the far right marked radiation absorbed by atmosphere 15% is heading back to the ground ?
Yes Eben, you have missed the change from SW atm. absorbed (orange 15%) to LW atm. emitted (red) is headed to the ground from atm. as shown by the arrow into the ground and the larger width of the LW (red) right most line.
No, you have it backwards, the 15% orange line is a split part of from the ground outgoing radiation getting absorbed by atmosphere and flowing into the thick 64% red line, it has no arrow on it but you can check it by adding all the numbers going into the thick red line,
it is 16+3+7+23+15= 64
Eben, refer to the incoming solar arrow pointing to the right into the “absorbed by atmosphere” SW orange 16% horizontal line that turns down thereby pointing to the ground and becoming emitted LW (red) by atm. downwards after the solar SW 16% was absorbed.
The emitted by surface “radiated to space from earth” is thin part of that line same far right red line with the down arrowhead at the end: would have been better, less confusing, to show it separate.
This cartoon showing backradiation combined into one line (a poor cartoonist) has confused you (and many others) and was later much improved.
“refer to the incoming solar arrow pointing to the right into the “absorbed by atmosphere” SW orange 16% horizontal line that turns down thereby pointing to the ground”
That is not one line turning downward , those are two different lines.
The proof is your numbers don’t add up.
Eben, it is one orange line turning down adding 16% to the large atm. emitted red line, 1% of which is shown emitted LW “radiated to space from clouds and atmosphere”, 15% SW added to far-right red line, 6% of which is “radiated directly to space from earth” & the balance atm. LW emitted toward the surface and absorbed there as DWIR as the down arrowhead shows making up total “absorbed by land and oceans”.
You cannot count to 64 , game over
Eben is misguided, the far-red arrow 21 LW emitted from surface doesn’t somehow undergo heating in a cooler atm. into SW solar incoming orange and curve off the far-red line into the big red arrow. Try again Eben.
This poorly constructed cartoon has thoroughly confused Eben, a modern one like L’Ecuyer 2015 (including the water cycle balance Fig. 4) would help Eben understand Earth’s energy budget.
Add up the numbers.
I hate to say it, but this time he is right, about the number on the cartoon.
Not about anything else he said.
This diagram represents net flows only.
There are three orange lines which are added to the big red outgoing arrow.
One is the 16% of incoming that is absorbed by the atm.
One is the 3% absorbed by clouds.
One is the 15% coming up from the ground that gets absorbed by the atmosphere on it’s way out. That 15% comes from the 21% emitted from the ground directly, leaving 6% to go directly from the ground to space.
The big red arrow that ends up being 64% emitted to space from the clouds and the atm, starts out with 7% conduction from ground to air which then rises, and 23% carried to clouds and atm by wv.
On the way out, the 23% and the 7% combine with, (in order from bottom to top) 3% that was incoming absorbed by clouds, 15% that was emitted from the ground directly, that is absorbed by air on the way up, and 16% that was incoming absorbed by the air.
The big red arrow is 64%, which is 23 + 7 + 3 + 15 +16 = 64
64% was emitted to space from clouds and air, plus 6% directly leaves from the ground (presumably through atmospheric window), 6% incoming reflected from atm, 20% incoming reflected by clouds, and 4% incoming reflected from ground (6 + 20 + 4 are presumably as visible light and some UV). These all add to 100. So it balances, which is not hard when one is making a diagram using whole numbers.
The diagram was badly done, for sure.
It should show the red outgoing arrow getting bigger as each other arrow joined it, just like the yellow one got smaller as each fraction separated out.
But none of that matters, because it is still just a simplified cartoon of the whole complex atmosphere, and shows zero feed backs, which of course happens in every energy stream to some degree.
It is net flows only, not evidence that the people who made it “knew” there was no such thing as energy leaving the ground looping back around before heading out.
Just like of course there is energy reflected not once but several times, such as from the ground into a cloud and then back to the ground, or from a cloud and up into another cloud and then down to the surface, etc.
Light is widely scattered, reflected, absorbed and reemitted, in all directions all the time. Budget diagrams like this that are net flows to not even try to capture everything going on, just the big picture, big ticket item net flows.
Warmistas are so intent on making CO2 out to be the devil molecule, they have gotten to the point of calling CO2 a deadly pollutant and some actually deny that having more of it enhances photosynthesis.
And in an unseemly display of like minded thinking, some skeptics (we need a name for this faction) seem to have the notion that they must disbelieve in even the known physical properties of CO2, which the warmistas use to make their idiotic case, by exaggerating not only the effect of it, but also inventing the notion that the Earth is too hot and we will cook if our ice age having planet warms fractionally.
And just like the warmistas have done over the years, they are inventing new reasons why back radiation is not a thing, some of which are mutually contradictory:
-CO2 can only emit upwards
-CO2 emissions can go down, but if they do, they cannot be absorbed and therefore will all reflect (as if that matters)
-It’s the emissivity, stupid
-Them pyromcgizmofanistanamahoozit instruments are big fat lying liars that lie
-Whatever they come up with next, as they think of it
“The diagram was badly done, for sure.” No kidding.
Actually, the cartoon shows one is the 15% coming up from the ground that, first encounters mystery heating to the equivalent solar incoming flux, and THEN gets absorbed by the atmosphere big red LW arrow.
Since that is illogical even for this cartoon, what they are showing is the 16% SW being reduced by 1% maybe absorbed by clouds, and then clear sky 15% continuing as SW, being absorbed by the atm. and radiated as LW increasing the width of window 6% red line.
Yes, the far-right arrow appears to include the NET of upwelling from the surface less downwelling to the surface (which Eben missed) plus the window for 21%. The reason Eben’s math added correctly is faulty.
To get the math to add correctly to 64%, an unknown, unnoted amount of LW from the surface must be added. It appears the cartoon maker meant the lower part of the cartoon’s red arrows to show radiation arrows from/to the surface.
The reason Eben uses this badly done cartoon (instead of more modern ones that are far less mysterious) is known only to Eben.
What he said.
That is not GHG “back radiation”. That is what might be be better called “indirect sun energy”. Look at the incoming solar and how much water (vapor) absorbs directly from the sun, not from Earth’s radiation.
Jim 5:08pm, it is not clear what you mean by “that”. The cartoon posted by Eben is so poorly drawn trying to discuss its contents is not really useful when much better Earth energy budget work is currently available. I’m guessing by “that” you mean solar absorbed by atm. shown as orange changing upon absorption to atm. emitted red.
My point was that the “78” shown as being absorbed by the atmosphere is included as “back radiation” when it really isn’t from energy radiation emitted from the surface. It is energy directly from the sun and shouldn’t be treated in the calculations for how GHG’s work. If CO2 were to disappear tomorrow, this energy would still remain and some of it would reach the surface.
Jim, all the atm. gas is illuminated by the solar rays so the atm. composition and pressure matter for the solar spectrum absorption (78) thus GHGs need to be included for solar absorption & modulate the poorly named “backradiation” (really the 333 is all-sky emission shown as downwelling).
Yes, if the atm. IR opacity is reduced (and/or surface pressure reduced) with less IR active gas composition, then more solar is incident on the surface so the 23 and 161 go up, the 78 atm. absorbed and 79 all-sky reflected go down.
And, yes, Eben should closely study your more modern cartoon.
The point being that it is NOT “back radiation” from CO2! It is basically radiation from the sun that reaches earth indirectly.
The level of CO2 is not going affect this value one iota. Reducing or increasing CO2 simply will have no effect. Spending trillions upon trillions won’t eliminate it.
Jim, it really is CO2 et. al. gas emissions from absorbed solar & the more CO2 an iota more that emission is incident on the surface since the atm. is not 100% transparent to solar illumination. In fact, no way to tell if an observed DW ~3.5micron photon came from the sun or the atm.
Again, there is very little solar radiation with wavelengths greater than 4um.
“Very little” is not none. The sun emits all wavelengths of light as does all matter.
At 50um the AM0 irradiance is effectively zero. It increases slowly at shorter wavelengths so that by 4um it is 0.04% of the peak at 0.45um.
The integrated total in the 4-50um band is only 11.7 W/m2, which is less than 1% of the TSI. And this is less than 4% of a downwelling IR of 300 W/m2.
Water absorbs a lot of direct energy from the sun. Look at the values on the y-axis and compare them to what is emmitted
Off the end of this graph, the AM0 declines from the 0.026 W/m2/nm at 3um down to just 0.008 W/m2/nm at 4um.
At 15um the AM0 is only 5×10^-5 W/m2/nm.
Very little of the 11.7 W/m2 in the 4-50um band makes it to the surface, it is pretty much unmeasurable and lost in other signals.
(Minor point–the label about the yellow areas is a bit simplistic, the visible loss is mostly scattering, Rayleigh and molecular. The magnitude changes a lot with solar position, i.e. the atmospheric path length.)
The point is that it isn’t “back radiation”, that is radiation that was first radiated by the earth’s surface and then returned. It is not part of the greenhouse effect, especially CO2. It may be going thru radiative gases rather than directly from the sun, but it didn’t originate from the surface and was then returned. Radiative diagrams should show it as a separate input to the earth. The “greenhouse effect” should be shown separate.
The main point that many do not understand is that Earth would be at 200 deg C in daylight and -100 deg C at night if there was no atmosphere, like the Moon. Thus, having an atmosphere serves to cool the day and warm the night. It’s that simple.
That said, the climate alarmist claim is that the tropical upper troposphere is warming, emits IR (with half lost immediately to space) and then warming Earth’s surface with downwelling IR. As the surface is warmer than the upper tropical troposphere during daylight, downwelling IR must be reflected and sent back upward where it is lost to space. This follows the laws of thermodynamics.
This does not say that having an atmosphere does not change the movement of insolation energy from the surface. With no atmosphere, all heat loss from the surface would have to be radiation. Having an atmosphere adds conduction and convection, which are effective at lower temperatures than the surface with no atmosphere. The result of having an atmosphere is indeed a much more stable climate.
Charles writes ” .. emits IR (with half lost immediately to space) and then warming Earth’s surface with downwelling IR.”. I keep insisting that you have to take this further. Half (or so) is lost to space. The other half is said to go back to the surfave and heat. This heated surface in turn later emits LWIR to the atmosphere, with half of it lost immediately to space. You then have a simple series that sums to 100% lost to space if you do a lot of these mini-cycles.
So we have all of that upwelling IR lost to space. The question is, is it ALL lost to space or does some fraction stay behind as increased surface heating?
My basic question is, why would it? Geoff S
With an emissivity/absorptivity of 0.95+, not much would be reflected. To reflect all downwelling IR, the earth would have to have an absorptivity of zero.
Willis quote from the 2nd link: “If DLR were heating the air we’d all be on fire.”
😂😂😂
This discussion is not relevant to the “CO2 causes massive atmospheric heating” argument.
Conflating SW and LW radiation, Upwelling and downwelling radiation of both types in the argument is just twirling nonsense around.
The real argument is whether or not there is downwelling IR in the 15 micron band. this is what needs to be addressed because it is precisely the argument that alarmists use to claim that CO2 is the control knob of global warming.
http://klima-fakten.net/?page_id=2690&lang=en
please address your arguments to the statements made in this paper. You can also address William Happer’s statements that IR in the 15 micron band absorbs to extinction. It absorbs to extinction upwards and downwards for any emissions. That is the reason for the missing IR in any TOA spectral plot that you see, within the 15 micron band.
We understand that there is downwelling IR generated. However not in the 15 micron band. There are 19 molecules of CO2 in the ground state for every one in an excited state. Practically All of the IR in this band is absorbed whether or not it is upward or downward.
This Thread has pulled in all the kooks. It appears that dragons inhabit the vast regions of their willfully ignorant wasteland voids. They develop elaborate schemes and ‘mathematical proofs’ to deny accepted science. Kooks and the easily led.
All of the skeptical physicists recognize the accepted operation of the misnamed GHG theory. Read Drs. Linzden and Spencer, Sr. on the subject.
We used to have people like RGB from Duke laboring for what must have been hours at a time keeping it real. Him and others.
We have lost many voices over the years, to our detriment.
Another valuable voice was DB Stealey (“Treat me good and I’ll treat you better, treat me badly, and I’ll treat you worse”)
I miss him and RGB from Duke, and so many others.
But we have gained new voices.
Threads like this are a good thing.
We see who can at least be civil while having disagreements, and who can be ignored.
But we have to always correct the misstatements and erroneous points of view, both to keep conversations grounded in reality, and for the benefit of lurkers and those who are reading and might be taken in by bullshit arguments.
Looking back at the history of science, it is very evident that WUWT operates like science is supposed to, that what we see here is how it has always been in the world of ideas, and it is one of the only places with a critical mass of properly informed and educated contributors and commentators.
It would be very interesting to see the spectral distribution of the >4um downwelling flux, and how it changes from day to night. This is a really tough measurement, though.
Here’s my standard thought experiment that should cause some folks to do a little deeper thinking:
Suppose you replace all the GHGs in our atmosphere with a special molecule that is gravitationally locked to the planet. This gas absorbs IR only at its planet facing bottom and emits it only towards space. It also transfers energy via kinetic collisions just like GHGs. Furthermore, let’s assume it absorbs/emits at half the frequency of current GHGs to keep the radiation rate to space the same.
What would the temperature of Earth be?
I believe the correct answer is the Earth would be warmer. How is that possible without back radiation?
Simple answer is there are other means of energy transfer and the real reason the surface of the planet is warmer is because GHGs warm the atmosphere. They absorb energy and pass it on to the other molecules. Since there are more molecules near the surface, the surface is warmer.
The surface would also end up warmer due to conduction which would essentially replace back radiation. Overall, the higher albedo due to no clouds would lead to a warmer Earth.
All that back radiation is doing on Earth is changing the conductive flow of energy. Whatever additional back radiation from increases in CO2 will simply decrease the conductive energy flow.
Another slightly different form of this thought experiment:
What if the surface reflected all IR from gases?
The energy would generally be absorbed by other gases low in the atmosphere. This would make it warmer than the surface and conduction would work to equalize the energy. Once again we see the energy from downwelling IR has very little to do with the temperature of the surface.
It is the energy absorbed by GHGs and transferred within the atmosphere that is most important.
This magical (highly non-physical) property makes that gas appear, from the surface, to be at absolute zero, for purposes of radiative heat transfer.
This guarantees that the surface will lose energy via thermal radiation at the same rate that it would in a vacuum.
If any heat is lost through conduction/convection, the surface would lose heat even faster and be even colder.
No, this is clearly wrong.
Willis,
The CERES sensors are satellite mounted and detect radiation leaving TOA. Those sensors do NOT know surface downwelling and surface upwelling numbers. Those are calculated from surface sensor parameters. So there is a good reason for the match to SURFRAD data….
AFAIK, the CERES datasets do NOT include surface sensor parameters. There is a list of the data sources for the CERES dataset here. None of them are “surface sensor parameters”. Not one.
So that is NOT the reason for the good match between CERES and SURFRAD data.
w.
Downwelling radiation is within the solar constant level of radiation.1418 watts 398 K. Has wavelengths at 7.3µm, considered longwave. It is definitely not from greenhouse gases which purpose is to cool the earth not warm it. It is well known that dry air is warmer than moist air. Water vapor is a product of evaporation. Takes heat from the ground making air above the ground cooler. Dew point is much cooler than the ground, therefore doesn’t increase ground heat. The gas constant for air is 0.287 Joules/gram providing the atmosphere the minimum energy of 98 watts. The gas constant can go up to 0.7 Joules/gram earths effective temperature of -18°C. And to 1 Joule/gram, earths thermal ideal blackbody normal temperature 5.3°C. Land absorbs far more from the sun in parts where moisture is low increasing global temperature (Feb-Aug) in the summer. And cools the earth where land snow is extensive (Sept-March), lowering the constant to 0.946 Joules/gram. Atmospheric air gas constant has a minimum 0.287 at tropopause, 0.70 effective temperature and 1.01 J/gram global average.
At 7.3um, the solar irradiance at the top of the atmosphere is only 0.8 W/m2/um, which is just 0.04% of the peak at 0.45um, 2100 W/m2/um.
“It is well known that dry air is warmer than moist air.”
You seriously have no idea what you are talking about.
Just about everything else you have said is equally loopy or ridiculous.
He has never been to South Vietnam.
Or Antarctica.
This is the explanation.
.
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7j.html
Physical geography is very important as where one must start one’s study of the physical parameters of the Earth.
It is a prerequisite course program prior to studying meteorology, climatology, oceanography, hydrology, etc.
It does not get bogged down with detailed examinations of atmospheric physics.
Most students taking these classes have not finished introductory courses in physics, or chemistry, etc.
Take a look at the links at the bottom of this textbook page:
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/readings_ch7.html
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/studyguide_ch7.html
INTERNET WEBLINKS – Chapter 7: Introduction to the Atmosphere (physicalgeography.net)
Just like no one studies physical chemistry prior to completing general chemistry and general physics, no one studies atmospheric physics or climatology prior to completing physical geography.
Downwelling IR is real of course.
Measuring it amounts to nothing more than a measurement of atmospheric temperature.
CO2 absorption length (to 1/e) is 25 meters with complete absorption well before 1km. Following the implications of saturation forces the warmists to retreat to the far upper atmosphere where the sky above is transparent. But here in the super thin air of the meso- and exosphere the heat and radiation fluxes are negligible.
What matters is transport of heat to the emission level at the troposphere-stratosphere boundary. A big error is the assumption that this is only radiative. It’s not. It is more from convection. Heat exchange between turbulently circulating air, water vapour, sea and land surface and soil are all factors at least as important as radiation flux.
No one thinks it is only radiative.
What you seem to be overlooking is, the amount of change in the balance of energy flows being debated as consequential or not, are a small fraction of the total flows of energy.
After all, warmistas are claiming a 1.5° rise in temps over 140 years is an actual catastrophe with existential implications.
I skim read all the comments: you all have it wrong. Read my papers, the titles give my key points:
The Greenhouse Gases and Infrared Radiation Misconceived by Thermoelectric Transducers https://vixra.org/abs/1811.0499
Quantum Mechanics and Raman Spectroscopy Refute Greenhouse Theory
https://vixra.org/abs/1811.0498
Why is no one talking about what the Raman Lidars are measuring in the infrared? It is the technology of our age and it is ignored.
I have just recently conducted an experiment no one else has ever done. It shows CO2 does not at all absorb any IR radiation as claimed, nor does glass. Water does. And germanium – said to be transparent to IR – is totally opaque. We have fooled ourselves. http://www.fractalnomics.com/2021/05/refuting-greenhouse-theory-experiment.html
In an age of quantum mechanics and laser-based instruments, there are no special gases, only special instruments and systematic error.
Please define the exact wavelengths you are labeling as IR.
There are QM predicted spectra lines throughout the IR range of the EMS by all atmospheric molecules. They are either detected/inferred by thermo-electric detectors or laser Raman scattering. The thermo-electric modes are termed IR and the Raman detected modes, Raman. The BB curves in the diagram are produced by thermoelectrics.
Those N2 and O2 lines are Raman lines not IR absorption lines.
Who is the “you” that has it all wrong?
You said that after saying you skim read all the comments.
So you were referring to, what…all the commenters above?
Who you admit you only skimmed over?
Are you trying to be funny?
Or insulting?
Your impression is no one has any idea what they are talking about, and after saying this, you advise we should go to your site to be set straight?
Good luck wit’ dat.
“…there are no special gases, only special instruments and systematic error.”
And presumably, a very few “special people”, eh?
Glass does not absorb IR?
Some wavelengths it does, and some it is known not to.
Are you seriously suggesting we need to throw away every study ever done on the spectroscopic properties of CO2?
And glass?
By ‘you’ I mean everyone.
Yeah, ‘good luck with dat’.
I was skimming for discussion on ‘Raman instruments’ and I saw nothing. If Tyndal had a Raman spectrometer he would have concluded all the gases absorb and emit IR. And he would have used glass (silica) instead of salt crystal to contain his gases. Glass is thermoelectric: it transduces IR radiation to electricity very well.
As I said, your BB curves are thermoelectric curves. They are correct, but misleading if you don’t combine them with Raman inferences as I have. Without that they are incomplete. To see the other IR emission spectra lines you need Raman spectrometer. When that’s done, all the gases radiate, as they should by quantum theory.
Using my diagram, I am filling in the area y. That is the way it is.
I have an experiment to test my theory. I want to radiate pure N2 or O2 with focused IR sunlight and measure them (at their 2338cm-1 and 1556cm respectively) with a Raman CARS spectrometer.
I have been told by experts it will work in principle but there are laser ‘noise’ problems.
I have papers that show similar experiments have already been conducted in a similar context.
Besides, the N2-CO2 laser works on the radiation of N2 at its 2338, so it does absorb. and it does for IR photons also.
So GH theory as we know it is wrong.
Besides, air is not a thermal conductor (0.024WmK), so it must radiate; else there would be no convection.
“Besides, the N2-CO2 laser works on the radiation of N2 at its 2338, so it does absorb. and it does for IR photons also.
So GH theory as we know it is wrong.”
No the CO2 laser does not work like that. The N2 is excited by an electrical discharge but the transition is forbidden so the long-lived excited state transfers its energy collisionally to the CO2 which then radiates.
“Read my papers …” and you will become dumber.
No. Not dumber, enlightened. Pun intended.
Willis Eschenbach
Thank you for this short, but excellent exposé.
It might appear on this blog as a kind of ‘inconvenient truth’ 🙂
Rudolf Clausius was already aware of much of it, as he published in 1887
DIE MECHANISCHE WÄRMETHEORIE
von R. CLAUSIUS
DRITTE UMGEARBEITETE UND VERVOLLSTÄNDIGTE AUFLAGE.
ERSTER BAND.
https://archive.org/details/diemechanischewr00clau
*
Therein we can read (translated into English using Google)
SECTION XII.
The concentration of heat and light beams and the limits of their effect
…
1. Subject of the investigation.
…
” What further regards heat radiation as happening in the usual manner, it is known that not only the warm body radiates heat to the cold one but that the cold body radiates to the warm one as well, however the total result of this simultaneous double heat exchange is, as can be viewed as evidence based on experience, that the cold body always experiences an increase in heat at the expense of the warmer one. ”
Rgds
J.-P. D.
Thanks, Bindidon, always good to hear from you.
What you point out is both true and interesting. And despite the fact that this has been known since 1887, there are still people on this post arguing strongly that cold objects cannot radiate energy to warm bodies.
More curious still, in most cases the lack of basic knowledge is inversely proportional to the passion with which they propound their incorrect understandings.
w.
When people have understandings different to the conventional scientific findings (and therefore usually wrong), there is an understandable tendency to yell louder to try and convince those they think are deaf.
Even before 1887. Almost a hundred year prior in fact.
Just that back that long ago, people’s intuition and old ideas that had yet to be discarded made a morass of what was being elucidated by careful experimentation:
Pictetâ•Žs experiment: The apparent radiation and reflection of cold (pugetsound.edu)
Can someone answer a simple question?
In what sense is a measurement of IR pointed at the sky, anything more or less than just a measurement of near surface atmospheric temperature?
Just like pointing an IR sensor at someone’s forehead measures if they have a fever?
It’s only different in the units of measurement. Downwelling IR is measured in W/m2. The IR thermometer merely converts that to temperature using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation.
w.
There is also the issue of spectral bandwidth, the IR thermometer has a much narrower bandwidth compared with the wide-bandwidth instruments used in SURFRAD (pyrgeometers).
H.E.:
When pointing an IR sensor at the sky, the IR radiation mostly comes from a significant distance (unlike from someone’s forehead). So the measurement usually comes from a noticeably different temperature level.
I have pointed my kitchen IR thermometer at a clear night sky when the near surface temperature was about +20C and it reported a temperature level less than 0C (which meant that it received radiation equivalent to an object with ~0.95 emissivity at that temperature level).
It’s easy to experiment with this, pointing it at different angles under different conditions!
The red|orange lines show the amount of solar energy that is absorbed by the surface. It’s the net of the downwelling solar minus the solar that is reflected back upwards from the ground. As you can see, the annual average solar energy absorbed by the surface is about 150 watts per square metre (W/m2).
The yellow|gold lines, on the other hand, show the upwelling longwave (thermal infrared) energy, energy that is radiated upwards from the surface. The annual average upwelling longwave energy is about 395 W/m2.
Now, for all of you that think that downwelling radiation from the atmosphere is a mirage, here’s the question.
If on an ongoing basis the surface is only absorbing 150 W/m2 of solar energy and is radiating 395 W/m2 of energy … why isn’t it frozen solid?
This question is ill-posed.
It is oversimplifies to the point of physical meaninglessness.
First we measure downward sunlight. But it is dissected twice before we get the number of 150 W/m2. It is shorn of what is “reflected back”. OK. Are we confident that we know exactly the albedo and its value at every wavelength? And all related parameters of emissivity? And what if reflected light is immediately reabsorbed locally? Does that count as absorption or reflection?
The second dissection is even more wondrous. Somehow we can separate light coming down from the sun in its first pass, from downwelled IR belched earthward from the CO2 sky dragon. Rather like a rabbit or guineapig distinguishes first time through poo – which it eats – from second time poo – which it leaves? Do we imagine the sunlight has no IR component? It does.
So our starting number of 150, sprung on us so simply, is the result of a lot of slicing and dicing.
Of course, IR from the sun won’t make it directly to the earth’s surface any more than surface IR will make it directly to space; both have a mean free path of 25 meters only. But all sunlight including IR will warm the atmosphere on its way down, causing the atmosphere to radiate IR. So the downwelling IR is caused by warming of the atmosphere by both sunlight above abd earth and sea below.
All this is glossed over in the simplistic equation, which appears to suggest that the sun’s rays pass through the atmosphere without any thermal interaction with it.
Likewise the apparent radiation of 395 W/m2 “upwelling” – when we point our IR meters downward – is simply a consequence of the earth surface being hotter than the atmosphere. Upwelling IR seems to be greater than downwelling simply because the earth’s surface is hotter than the atmosphere. All we are doing is just measuring the temperature of both.
The point is that IR simply comes from hot things. IR is downwelled because of the temperature of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is heated both directly by sunlight from above and both radiatively and convectively from the earth and sea below.
Among all the complexity of atmosphere earth and ocean heat exchange, one thing is trivially simple to the extent that it is not even a factor. That is the balance of radiation impinging on the earth from the sun and that leaving it. No anxious energy needs to be expended about this budget, it will look after itself. (Incidentally some planets like Jupiter emit significantly more energy as radiation than they receives. This is because Jupiter hasn’t finished generating heat from compression. But I digress.)
But again we have to return to the central problem of the radiative paradigm of the CO2 warming idea. The entire narrative, despite claims to the contrary, rests on the assumption that only radiation moves heat in the atmosphere.
The atmosphere is a chaotically roiling pandemonium of moving air currents, clouds and precipitation, lightning sparks, ice and even particulates. IR light is only one way out of many for heat to move around within the turbulent atmosphere. Just phase changes of water account for way more energy than CO2.
Reducing the immense complexity of atmospheric thermodynamics to just two or three terms of up or down “welling” actually simplifies it to death. No answer to anything lies along that path.
Hatter Eggburn May 29, 2021 4:52 pm
The solar energy is measured at the surface. So we don’t need to know the exact albedo. We just measure what is arriving at the surface.
Nothing “wondrous’ about it. Downwelling IR from the sun is what is called “shortwave IR”. Downwelling IR from the atmosphere is what is called “longwave IR”. When doing the measurements, a filter is used to filter out the wavelengths that we don’t want to measure.
It’s no different in concept from using say a red filter on a photo. It filters out everything but the red, and there’s nothing “wondrous” about it.
Regards,
w.
Hatter,
It would be easier to take your criticisms as coming from a position of great knowledge, if you did not seem oblivious to certain easily discovered and well known bits of information.
Personally, I am sure that the uncertainties in measurements as well as the variations over time of what is being measured, regarding all of the relevant data, is too close to any signal that is trying to be extracted, to make any huge conclusions about what is changing, and by how much, let alone why.
We have devices that can make incredibly precise measurements, and many of them may even be fairly accurate as well.
But the Earth is a big place, and as you point out it is very complicamated.
Getting back to my first point though, it seems you have not spent enough time familiarizing yourself with the subject matter regarding radiation and how it is discerned what is coming from where.
Here is what the Sun emits (and I hope these pictures post as photos and not a link…not sure why some do one and some the other):
So that is very well known…after all we have instruments in space that can measure it directly, outside of the atmosphere, or at least most of it. I think we have sent some probes far enough away for a look at the Sun that they are outside of the atmosphere, although I hear tell that the atmosphere never really ends. Instead, it is like Mike Tyson…it just fades into Bolivian.
Then we have good measurements of what arrives at the surface, known as incoming solar radiation at sea level:
It shows very clearly where absorption has occurred, and the difference in the amount of energy making it to the surface gives a pretty good idea of how much of what is shining on the earth makes it to the surface. Although it must be noted by anyone paying close attention and wanting to be rigorous that the various measurements of incoming solar, and how they vary over time, seem to be internally consistent, there is a marked variability between what the various different instruments have recorded as an absolute value, and these differences are of the same order of magnitude as the amounts regarded as consequential re “climate change.
Here is a chart illustrating that point:
This quantity is called solar irradiance, and it can be seen to be kind of all over the map when we go to measure it carefully. Some of the newer instruments give values that form a little cluster, but even they vary between each other by a couple of watts per square meter.
However, as Willis has already relied to you, and is pointed out elsewhere in this thread, and I will now give charts to make clear…there is a big and readily discernable difference in the wavelengths of the IR emitted from the Earth and bouncing around inside the atmosphere, and the IR that comes from the Sun.
As this graph makes clear.
Note the wavelength values:
Here is another form of that same information. There are several very similar versions of this basic chart, and I am just picking one kind of at random. A simple search will turn up oodles of them if you want to see more:
So, yeah…it is easy to pick out what is coming from where, when it comes to wavelengths.
Because wavelengths are very specific to various materials and various temperatures, and the Sun is very hot, and the Earth is not, and for gasses it is even easier…they all have known bands of absorption and emission that are very well described.
As the charts show very clearly.
I think you are wrong when you say “No answer to anything lies along that path.”
But I would say you would be correct to say, that the idea that “All answers to everything lies along this path” is utter horsesh!t.
And that is one of the ways warmistas have gone far astray of science.
Below is a montage of various charts showing solar and terrestrial spectra on the same chart, in order to see how they relate to each other.
*Note that some charts have wavelengths in nanometers (nm) and others in micrometers (μm)
(
Nicholas
Thanks for taking the time to post those illuminating details of wavelengths and spectra, it was of course a mistake to make no reference to wavelengths in my argument. As Willis mentioned it’s simply what the instruments reliably measure, over well separated spectral bands.
I don’t dispute the data themselves, i.e. the closely agreeing CERES and ground based spectral measurements. Only what they mean.
The way it was presented implies a miracle is taking place, that energy from the sun – 150 w/m2 – is being multiplied like loaves and fishes to a 2-3 times greater downwelled flux of SW + LW.
However this is of course not the whole picture since total incident solar energy is 1380 W/m2. This shows that even inflating the 150 to 225 to allow for albedo (0.3), still the majority of incoming solar radiation is not making it to the surface to be included in that 150 W/m2 absorbed.
What happened to that energy? That’s a big part of the total picture missing. I think that Willis’ summary of the radiative energy budget would be more “transparent” if it included the total of 1380 W/m2 solar. I accept your point that electromagnetic radiation in the atmosphere is spectrally “stamped” so we know where the different measured components are coming from. But does it tell us everything about energy flow? Convection and water enthalpy are big gaps in the equation.
If 1380 W/m2 are incident at top of atmosphere but 225 make it to the surface (adding back in albedo reflection) then 1155 W/m2 have gone AWOL. Where? My guess is that a large part of it has heated the atmosphere. What else could that energy have done? This would explain the apparent multiplication of energy at the surface.
As you probably guess I’m no physicist, only a biologist, so I’m not going to make a fool of myself (any more than I already have) by diving into the minutiae of radiative physics and spectroscopy in the atmosphere. The central, obvious fact is that sunlight warms the earth’s surface. I’ll end by making only 2 comments.
1. 1155 “missing” W/m2 from top to bottom of the atmosphere show that the sun does not only heat the atmosphere from the earth’s surface. It loses most of its radiative energy on its way down through the atmosphere – heating the air.
2. In regard to the misnamed “Greenhouse” effect, what matters is how heat gets to the emission height above which the atmosphere is transparent to IR. From the surface, some will be transmitted as IR photons endlessly absorbed and re-emitted. But not all. A significant amount of heat movement upward from the surface will be convection, such as the thermal updrafts on which birds soar and glide all day long. Enthalpy of condensation with cloud formation also represents a big heat movement in the atmosphere. But as point 1 shows, not all the heat at the emission level comes from below. A lot is from above, never reaching the surface. (And atmosphere heating from above will be reduced by high atmosphere CO2 redirecting incident IR back to space.)
The spectral data give a detailed and internally consistent story of course. I don’t challenge that. Like most posters here I don’t disbelieve in downwelled IR. (Other red herrings like IR not heating the oceans are also irrelevant.)
It’s just that the intricate and beautiful radiation and spectral story is not the whole story of energy in the atmosphere.
An unspoken implication is that CO2 at one molecule in 2500 in the atmosphere, is responsible for most of the radiative heat we receive at the surface. OK let’s say half of it if the IPCC AR4 allows a greenhouse doubling by water. That effectively, the sun cannot warm the earth without CO2. This is not credible. It’s worth noting in closing that the presence of water in the atmosphere is dependent on CO2 because of plants which increase humidity. CO2 fertilisation and global plant increase are changing atmospheric humidity with some deserts shrinking from plant encroachment. (Take away all CO2 and earth’s surface becomes lifeless and arid.)
Too many other connected factors are excluded from Willis radiative formula – although internally it is entirely consistent and correct. Final pompous quote from Hamlet:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
The purpose of Fig. 1 was to show the agreement between SURFRAD data and CERES data, and should not be seen as an energy balance demonstration.
Why?
First, these are monthly averages, not instantaneous values.
Second, the averages include data obtained in both daylight and nighttime. In daylight the solar irradiance is zero, but the longwave IR measured by the pyrgeometers remains above zero because the atmosphere is still warm and radiating.
So the shortwave monthly averages should be 2-3 times less, even though the solar irradiance is much higher.
The earth is a rotating sphere. That means that the Solar 1380 W/m2 must be divided by 4, IIRC.
Yes 345 is a much more credible number. Still > 225 though. Not everything is reaching the earth from space. The blue sky is evidence of that.
It is also very important to be very familiar with where all of these wavelengths fit into the big picture…the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
It can be seen that the IR band includes everything between visible light and microwaves, and microwaves blend right into the radio wave part of the spectrum, IOW photons with the lowest energy and hence the longest wavelengths…miles long at the long end.
IR itself covers several orders of magnitude of electromagnetic wavelengths:
Please elucidate:
In “Steel Greenhouse” 235 W/m^2 radiates to shell, which radiates 235 W/m^2 to space and to Earth. That is double the amount it receives, so is not a conserved quantity.
The Earth receives the additional 235 W/m^2 and now radiates at 470 W/m^2, but by the above logic this would be received back, so Earth would radiate at 940 W/m^2 and progress to infinity. So we have perpetual motion of the first kind.
Not true. Energy is conserved and there is no perpetual motion.
w.
Willis,
There Is no “conservation of energy”. Your “system”is losing energy, and will eventually reach 0 K. As to the other silliness of talking about W/m2, try making water hotter by exposing it to as much concentrated radiation from ice at 300 W/m2 as you like. Use any type of concentrator you like – lenses, parabolic mirrors – infrared is just light of longer wavelengths than visible light, after all. The laws of optics still apply,
You can’t do it, can you? Temperature is not measured in W/m2 for good reason. Your assumptions are ridiculous. Your shell is cooler than your surface, and any radiation towards that hotter surface will have precisely the same heating effect as that of 1 petawatt of radiation from ice does on a teaspoon of water. None at all.
It seems you are just making stuff up, based on refusal to accept reality.
A highly polished metal container of boiling water may be radiating 250 W/m2. Try keeping it boiling by exposing it to 300 W/m2 from ice! That’s why temperatures are measured in degrees.
“and will eventually reach 0 K”
The planet has a nuclear core producing 235 W/m2. The fluxes balance and everything is in steady state.
Thanks, Nick. I’m constantly amazed at the number of people who can misunderstand what is happening in the simple diagram above.
Ah, well, the beat goes on.
w.
Nick,
And losing an unstated amount of energy at a rate of 235 W/m2!
Everything balances?
You obviously have an imaginary nuclear core producing infinite energy – completely imaginary, of course!
You obviously have no concept of the conservation laws. Time for you to say you really meant something else, the loss is comparatively small, it’s all imaginary anyway, or any or all of the stupid excuses GHE believers come out with when anybody points out they are talking nonsense.
Maybe you could quote me exactly, and then provide facts to support any disagreement. Just making fatuous nonsensical assertions, and appealing to your own authority, is not particularly convincing.
The power generated continuously, and conveyed to space, is 235 * (planet surface area) W.
Nick,
From your infinite power source, of course. Unfortunately, Willis claimed “conservation of energy” for his imaginary fantasy.
Emitting infinite energy to space, and then claiming the system’s energy is “conserved” is just silly. Even more silly is your implication that the system will never cool, regardless of how much energy it emits.
Invoking magic in the form of an internally heated planet which has an inexhaustible power supply, maintaining a particular surface temperature until the end of time, never cooling or heating, is just fantasy.
Religion, not science, unless you can throw a few verifiable facts into the mix. Where may this magical “Greenhouse Effect” be observed and measured?
That would be a start.
Swenson
You’re the one who needs to go back to school and learn about radioactivity. No infinities or singularities involved. e=m.c^2 is a clue where the energy comes from.
Swenson, it’s called a “thought experiment”. It posits a nuclear core constantly heating the planet to 235 W/m2. You complain it won’t last until the end of time … say what?
Einstein’s famous thought experiment involved people in an elevator traveling through space. Good thing you weren’t around, you’d have whined to Einstein that “elevators don’t work in outer space” …
It’s a THOUGHT EXPERIMENT. It’s what we use when we can’t for some reason do a real experiment. It is not designed to last until the end of the universe as you claim. It’s designed to explain the reason that the poorly-named “greenhouse effect” works.
And yes, it does observe conservation of energy.
w.
Willis,
Here – your “thought experiment” is more a thoughtless experiment, not quite up to Einsteinian standards.
You wrote – “Good thing you weren’t around, you’d have whined to Einstein that “elevators don’t work in outer space”.
What happened to quoting people exactly? You know nothing about me – attempting stupid gratuitous insults achieves nothing except to make you look like a condescending and patronising idiot. I decline to feel insulted, as a rule. What about you?
Your “shell game” fails dismally. Just saying that 2 + 2 = 5 is true because it is a “thought experiment”, does not make any difference to reality.
You have a planetary surface radiating 235 W/m2. Around -9 C, say, but you need a nuclear core to maintain it. Really? Even though you don’t state it, your “shell”, starting off at 0 K, will warm to this temperature. You seem to be claiming that radiation from a “shell” of ice at -9 C, will raise the temperature of a ball of ice within it, also at -9 C, to what, precisely?
No GHE. That is why there is no experimental support for such silliness. Try again – think a bit harder next time.
Nick
Does this mean that the earth radiates more energy than it receives from the sun?
Like Jupiter does – emits significantly more radiative energy than it receives from the sun due to ongoing compressional heating.
No. As with Willis’ planet, which generates 235 W/m2, and the outer shell emits 235 W/m2. They balance.
Geothermal heat makes a very very small imbalance.
Nick,
Re Willis’ fantasy –
Balance?
You have two objects at the same temperature. One happens to be enclosed by the other. You are just being silly.
An air filled void in a block of ice radiating 275 W/m2 is receiving 275 W/m2 from all sides. In what fantasy do you believe the trapped air will become hotter?
Is that the same fantasy where a shell at the same temperature as the body it encloses magically makes the enclosed body hotter?
As to the Earth, Baron Fourier pointed out a long time ago that each night, the Earth loses all the heat it received from the Sun during the day, plus a little of the Earth’s own. Around 4×10^13 Watts, at present. No balance there, either. The Earth has cooled since the surface was molten. Lost energy. Duh!
It’s called reality. GHE believers have only a marginal attachment to reality.
Exactly: Power in must equal power out. Solar power in at TOA equals power out at TOA.
BUT: Power leaving the surface of the earth is greater than the power leaving at TOA. Willis’ steel shell toy explains why that is so.
The reason you can’t do it is because of a rather obscure principle of optics called “Conservation of Etendue.”
It’s NOT because its not value to add up W/m² from different sources, when the physics allows it.
To the contrary, you are believing silly misapplications of thermal physics that people “just made” up to try to disprove conclusions they didn’t like.
It’s fine to be skeptical. You don’t have to be committed to denying science in order to do it.
Willis is reporting accepted physics that has been well-known and extensively tested for over 150 years.
In the universe I know adding two items together at the same density does not double the density. This goes for mass and energy.
I am sorry, but the diagram clearly shows non-conservation. 235 Watts is absorbed by the steel shell, and 235 Watts is radiated into space. Simultaneously it radiates 235 Watts back to the surface. That is 470 Watts total radiated. If the steel shell absorbs 235 Watts, it cannot radiate more or conservation is broken.
Please note: I am not questioning that warming occurs or that back radiation occurs. I am merely asking for elucidation of the extra 235 Watts.
Thanks.
Robert, the diagram clearly shows 470 watts being radiated by the planet and absorbed by the steel shell, not 235. So energy is indeed conserved.
Planet receives 235 W/m2 from core, 235 W/m2 from shell, radiates 470. Steady-state.
Shell receives 470 W/m2 from planet, radiates 235 W/m2 to space, 235 W/m2 back to planet. Steady-state.
Regards,
w.
Yes, their back radiation is a “positive feedback loop” that would go to infinity amplifying its own energy and temperature , they just concocted the math to stop it when they reach their convenient temperature.
So you are as ignorant of math as you are of physics and science in general, as well as the basics of logical argumentation.
‘Kay, got it.
I for one believe you when you tell me this.
The steel shell cannot ever radiate greater than 235 W/m2 because that is the power input to the system. The energy distributions within the system don’t ultimately matter.
The shell has two sides. Radiates according to surface area and temperature.
Robert,
For one thing, the system has to be allowed to come to equilibrium before the numbers can be measured.
Yours is a failure of logic.
Another totally simple way to debunk the warmer object absorbing the radiation from a colder one is that if it did , you could easily warm up a warmer but very small object by placing it next to a very large but colder object , like placing a little warmer ball inside a a very large colder ball , the small ball would be forced to absorb many more times radiation from the large surrounding one simply because of the area difference next thing you see it would glow like a light bulb .
That obviously doesn’t happen , With this kind of fizzix the universe would turn into a total phantasmagorias.
And you have the math to show you know what you are talking about of course?
What do you think happens to photons emitted from a cooler object that impinge upon a warmer object?
Do you know what happens when a hot star and a cooler star are in a close binary orbit around one another?
What happens to the radiation from the cooler star that is falling upon the hotter star?
Note there are specific examples of the diameters of the two stars being far different from each other. It is not uncommon to have a large cool star with a small and very hot binary companion.
Besides for all of that, what is it that you suppose is innate in our intellect that allows us to think our way through your thought experiment and divine the correct result?
How many hours have you spent in labs or in various environments with thermometers and various apparatus, confirming that intuition can guide us in such matters?
Are you aware of the history of such matters going back hundreds of years? Or thousands?
Why did people back then get so many things wrong, if we can easily just think our way through such questions without referring to specific information?
Let alone disregard the findings of others who have done laborious experimentation and years long educations in the relevant subject matter, on the basis of some poorly thought out and haphazard supposing?
Nicholas,
You wrote –
“What do you think happens to photons emitted from a cooler object that impinge upon a warmer object?”
They don’t interact with it?
You may have noticed that adding energy in the form of ice cubes radiating 300 W/m2 does not raise the temperature of your soup.
You may have also noticed that visible light passes through things like glass without interaction. That’s why you can see through glass (and your eyeball, incidentally). The visible light photons do interact with cells in your retina.
Less energetic photons at radio and mobile phone frequencies pass through all sorts of material without interaction.
Thinking that matter must interact with photons of all energy just demonstrates that the thinker knows nothing about the physics involved.
Hope this helps to overcome your tendency to pose stupid gotchas, thinking it makes you appear knowledgeable.
I am knowledgeable, and they are not gotchas.
So, please tell me about this amazing insight you have regarding visible light passing through glass.
You say this is why we can see through it? (you said me but I am thinking you meant we)
Wow! I can tell you thought of that all by yourself, too.
I am impressed, no doubt about that.
So, your contention is what?
You talked a lot but said exactly nothing Swenson.
Is that what you consider communicating?
I for one never assume what other people are thinking or what they know.
I tend to ask questions if I want information.
People like you tend to tell people what they themselves think, and assume you know what other people know when you actually have not a single clue, as your comment proves.
When did I ever say or imply that “all matter must interact with all photons of all energies”?
I am quite certain that not only have I never said or thought any such thing, that if we take a look over what I have actually said (imagine that?), we will find plenty of proof that you are just making up crap.
So, you said to me, “Thinking that matter must interact with photons of all energy just demonstrates that the thinker knows nothing about the physics involved.”
And since I never thought that, what does it demonstrate that you know?
What does it say about your skill as a thinker to think you know things about people that are clearly false?
I will have to take your word for a few things, but I am not gonna assume I know what you know. I for one have never added ice cubes to soup.
Please tell us what happens?
What does happen to those 300 watts per square meter?
I’ll take it you have done some measurements on ice cube wattage, have you?
You got me there, I never did that.
Anywho, you never did explain exactly why visible light photons pass through glass, and what that has to do with anything we were discussing.
I was hoping you would, so I would have an actual reason to think you have any idea what you are talking about, instead of being, you know, just another jackass who never took an actual science class or read an actual book, but does spend lot’s of time on crank internet blogs bitching and moaning about how everyone but you knows so little about so much.
I hope this helps you overcome your urge to make a fool out of yourself in public, but…no, in fact, I am not very hopeful of that.
Nor do I care.
As for your not-quite assertion that photons from a cooler object do not interact when they impinge upon a warmer object, I have to wonder why you posed it as a question instead of a statement?
Is it because you literally have no effing clue what the hell you are talking about?
That would be my guess, although I cannot rule out the possibility that you are merely too chickensh!t to just say what you think in plain language.
That is what I do. But that’s just me, I know, I know.
Something else I do is find out things by dint of actual education.
Guesswork may be fine for you, and you keep at it, you may get something right one day, who knows?
But I like to learn things. It’s um…it is what I do.
You see, it is obvious to me that if something cannot happen because physics precludes it, it would have to be the case in all situations.
That is what happens when something is a, you know, law of nature.
Maybe you know some things by your sheer power of uninformed guesswork that people who merely dabbled in science, like Eddington, Milne, Chandrasekhar, and Schwartzschild never managed to learn in their whole life.
Like what happens when a cooler star sends out radiation that impinges on a hotter star, and vice versa, and they warm each other up.
Eddington wrote about it in 1926.
Milne in 1927.
Chandrasekhar in 1945, 1947, and 1950.
Wow…they could have saved some time talking to you first I guess, eh?
I am not sure someone who knows literally nothing, but thinks he knows everything, will be able to glean any speck of education from reading about the work of such people, but what the heck, let’s give you a shot.
I am just crazy like that, you know?
After all, I have no idea what it is you think or know unless you tell me, and even then I have to take your word for it, but I am generally the trusting type, at first anyway.
Here, I have even highlighted the parts to pay special attention to in order to quickly be disabused of unphysical ideas:
Two stars, one cooler, mutual heating, conspicuous, rather differing temperatures, physical interpretation…correctly…in terms of absorption and re-emission, Eddington, Milne, Chandrasekhar, re-radiation, radiative transfer solution, re-emitted radiation, all of the incident energy is…re-radiated, emitted spectrum of the irradiated atmosphere…different…from that if the incident light, but also from the spectrum the star would emit in…absence of incident radiation, Eddington’s results…amounts of re-radiated light…secondaries of low temperature, Changes in the emitted spectra caused by irradiation.
It is all right there, and much much more.
Here is the paper, and I even clipped and highlighted enough to show that either you are right, or else all of those guys are clueless pretenders.
It cannot be otherwise. Either you are right, or they are.
Not to mention every other astrophysicist who ever lived, then and now.
*1985Ap&SS.113..349V (harvard.edu)
One thing you will find nowhere is even a mention of any such idea that radiation from the cool star can have no effect on the warmer star because “they cannot interact”, or whatever jackassery you think you know.
Have a great day!
Oh, and BTW, I have oodles and oodles more if you are too dumb to understand it from the discussions and referenced work in this paper:
Just ask!
What he said.
Nicholas,
You posed the question “What do you think happens to photons emitted from a cooler object that impinge upon a warmer object?”
I answered with a rhetorical question (sorry about that) –
“They don’t interact with it?”
i provided a few examples, involving different wavelengths of light. You don’t want to accept reality, tough.
Try heating the smallest quantity of water using the radiation from as much ice as you like. No, Nicholas, I don’t care if every astrophysicist in the world claims you can use the radiation from ice to heat water – if you had enough!
No GHE. Back to your fantasy. Enjoy it.
You somehow think that the fact that glass is transparent to certain visible wavelengths of light has anything whatsoever to do with the relative temperatures of the glass or the object that emitted the light?
Glass is transparent to some wavelengths of EM radiation, but you obviously have no clue why.
What happens if I rub the glass surface with steel wool?
Is it still transparent?
How about if the light strikes the glass at a low angle and it acts like a mirror?
Does that happen because the glass is not transparent anymore?
When IR or UV wavelengths are absorbed by glass, what happens to that energy?
Does glass in sunshine get hot?
Why is the edge of a transparent sheet of glass green?
If you seriously think that your insightful observation that ice will not heat up hot soup has any bearing on what is being discussed here, or that this is what anyone thinks, either you do not know how to read, or you do not actually ever read anything, or you do read but are 100% unable to glean any information from having done so.
Look up the speed of light in glass, then explain how the glass is not actually interacting with the light.
Swenson – the 2.45GHz microwave frequency, as used in microwave ovens, is equivalent to a radiating hot body at around 0.042K. That’s actually pretty cold. You can however use it to heat a bowl of beans at 293K up to around 373K.
A photon is a packet of energy that carries no information about the temperature of its source, and the temperature of the object that absorbs it is also largely irrelevant (maybe some changes if you melt the surface or it becomes more-oxidised through heating).
When a photon is emitted, it can’t know the temperature of the body that will absorb it – that is beyond its event horizon. At the point it is absorbed, the emitter is also beyond its event horizon. To do otherwise would violate causality.
Thus any body that is over absolute zero will radiate as if the rest of the universe was at absolute zero, since it has no way of knowing what body will be receiving its radiation or what temperature that body will be – that’s all beyond its event horizon. Similarly it will absorb or reflect any incident photons independently of the temperature of the emitting object, since the photon carries no information about the temperature of the emitting object. All that affects absorption is the the properties of the surface.
Try a thought experiment. We have a body in space (far from the Sun) that is heated at a constant rate to 100°C (373K or so). The average radiative temperature of space is somewhere around 4K. Put a block of ice (or something else) at 273K close to our heated object. Will it cool down faster or slower than before we added that body? Since our heated object is now receiving more photons from the block of ice than it was from space, then if the heat input to the hot object remains the same, then its temperature will reach an equilibrium at a higher temperature with the ice there than if the ice was not there. Putting a colder object close to the hotter one make the hot one hotter, since we’re dealing with an object that is actively heated. If the hot object was however not being heated, it would instead cool down more slowly with the ice there than it would if the ice was removed.
The S-B equation defines how fast a body can radiate its heat energy to the environment. The hotter the object, the faster it can lose energy, to the fourth power of temperature. The only thing that stops a body cooling to absolute zero is that it also absorbs radiation from the environment. At equilibrium, a body is receiving (on average) just as much energy as it’s radiating.
It’s also maybe worth pointing out that if cold objects weren’t radiating then you couldn’t take a FLIR picture of them.
Nobody denies that cold objects radiates. The issue is the cooling rate of the hot body, or the heating rate of the cold body. A hot body at 100 (10^2)^4 = 10^8. A cold body at 10 will radiate at (10^1)^4 = 10^4. A cold body at 90 will radiate at (9×10^1)^4 = 6.561 x 10^7.
That makes the difference between 100 and 90
10×10^7 – 6.561×10^7 = 3.439
and it still hot to cold. When they are equal temps, the radiation will also be equal. There is a lot more to this than being discussed. Time and heat capacity are two of them.
Jim – the reason for the comment was that it seems that Swenson thought that the hotter body emitted only the net energy required to comply with the S-B formula, so between your bodies at 100K and 90K only the body at 100K would emit 3.439e+7 times the radiation constant and the body at 90K would not emit at all because it couldn’t send energy “up the hill” to the body at 100K. I’ve seen this assertion before from others, too. Thus I was trying to get Swenson to see that it’s a bidirectional transfer.
Interestingly, heat conduction is also a bidirectional transfer, but this is normally ignored. That gets more interesting if you can find ways to break the symmetry of the energy-transfers.
Simon,
Look through a pane of glass. The visible light photons pass straight through it.
Add energy to your pot of coffee in the form of an ice cube, and notice
that the temperature does not increase.
Try forcing water to absorb the 300 W/m2 which can be emitted by ice.
You really have no idea, have you?
Swenson – we know intuitively that heat always passes from the hotter object to the colder one. This is however a net result, and it is always a bidirectional energy transfer in practice. The hotter object emits energy at a higher rate than the colder one does, and the radiation path between them is symmetrical, and so far we have not produced a way to make that radiation path non-symmetrical (though there are some experiments using the properties of Garnet or similar that are non-symmetrical for specific wavelengths).
It appears that you think that the energy-transfers between objects are in one direction only, which is why I suggested that thought-experiment. A hot object (that is, above absolute zero) radiating energy cannot foretell the future of the photons it emits and what other object will absorb them since that absorption is beyond its event horizon.
Thus the colder objects are also emitting photons, and the hotter objects are receiving those photons and not losing net energy as fast as they would have done if those other objects were not there. Each object, no matter what temperature, emits photons as if there is nothing else in the universe. It also receives any photons that hit it, reflects some and absorbs others. The net change in energy of the object is the difference between the energy it radiates and the energy it receives.
That is why you can heat your beans in a microwave oven, where the equivalent temperature of the microwave radiation is 0.042K or so, but you’ve got around a kW power in that radiation.
It’s not the temperature of the source that’s important – it’s the power level it radiates and whether the receiving object will absorb those photons. When we’re talking about heated objects and black-body, grey body, or coloured body radiation and a symmetric radiation path, then the power emitted depends on the fourth power of the temperature, and so the net energy transfer will always be from the hotter body to the colder one.
A photon carries energy from the emitting body to the receiving body. The temperature of each body makes no difference to that process, since for the photon both bodies are beyond its event horizon. This probably seems non-intuitive, but it’s what actually happens. The net energy change is just the difference between the total energy emitted and the total energy received.
Here is the thing about debunking such a question in physics: Unless you have some data in hand, you have done nothing of the sort.
If you carefully describe what you think will happen, and exactly how you have devised to test your idea, and write it down, and then do the experiment, and careful collect the data, and then find your result to be both repeatable and reproducible, you have not even met the requirement of having what is known as a hypothesis.
All you have actually done is declare you know the results of experiments without ever doing any.
Nicholas,
Here is an experiment. Look through a window. The photons interacting with your retinal cells did not appear to interact with the glass through which they passed.
Look at the stars. The photons emitted by the stars seemed to pass through hundreds of kilometers of atmosphere, your eyeball, lenses and prisms if you used binoculars, without interaction.
Good enough?
You are confusing the heat of objects with energy production.
Both the small hot ball and the larger cold ball around it are losing energy and getting colder.
Fact
The small hot ball is losing more energy per volume than the larger cold ball.
It must cool down.
It will cool down slower if surrounded by a large cold ball.
Think Eskimo’s.
The small ball does not receive all of the energy radiating from the large ball around it
Half is going off to space.
Most of the rest misses it and is absorbed by the larger colder ball.
If they are so close that they are touching it should be obvious that the amount of the cold energy going into the small hot ball is less than the energy going out of the smaller hot ball to the larger cold ball.
Simply a matter of surface areas.
Moving away does not give the surface of the larger ball any ability to give the smaller hot ball any more energy than it would get if touching.
The smaller core ball is receiving energy from a constant power source such that it maintains a temperature so as to radiate at 235 W/m2. Adding a steel outer sphere, at equilibrium, means that it must radiate outwards to balance that constantly supplied 235 W/m2 to the new total system. The outer sphere can never radiate energy at a rate that exceeds or is less than the 235W/m2 externally supplied. [Sunlight energy in at TOA equals LW energy out.]
Does anybody deny that the core is receiving an additional amount of energy radiated from the inside of the outer sphere that physically must match the radiation of outer surface of said sphere (both at the same temperature)? If it receives additional energy, it must radiate that energy away or eventually self destruct. It must heat up to radiate away that additional energy.
The energy leaving the outer sphere can never exceed nor be less than the externally supplied power source. What happens in the gap between the core and exterior sphere is of no interest in establishing the above facts. We know this is a plausible thought scenario because that is what happens between Earth’s surface and TOA.
Willis,
Why did you abandon me?
I challenge you to solve this problem, again:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/28/the-hot-and-cold-of-space/
But this time with a PYGEOMETER instead of a block. The”bottom” faces the sun. The “top” faces space.
You can take off the dome top, since there is no point blocking shortwave radiation.
Keep the same adiabatic condition, the dimensions, and the k value – for simplicity.
Solve for Downwelling IR.
Please! As you know, I’m stupid and can’t do it myself.
Thank you.
He doesn’t love you anymore. Stalking him is not going to help.
Zoe,
It could be interesting to ask what temperatures Willis imagines (I use the term advisedly) would be recorded on a cube 1 mm on a side, front and back, with perfectly insulated “sides”.
Or on a granite block (“granitium”, perhaps, instead of unobtainium?) of 1 m x 1 m – but infinitesimal thickness (no need for perfect insulation).
It would be instructive if front and rear temperature differentials were calculated to be different depending in thickness or dimension. A magical variable thermal gradient varying from 0 to infinity, depending on the modelling ability of the user!
I’ll probably attract the wrath of the “back radiation” true believers, and a plethora of irrelevant and pointless analogies, but it seems to me that at a steady state, front and rear surfaces must be equal.
Zoe, with all respect, as I said above:
I hold that that statement is absolutely true.
Let me be clear. I do respect you and most of your work. But on certain questions, like geothermal heat and pyrgeometers, you have an idée fixe that no amount of evidence seems able to touch. For a long time I tried … and at this point, I’ve learned better.
Seriously, though, we’re not talking theory here. Your claim is that a measuring instrument based on known physical principles that has been routinely manufactured, calibrated against known IR sources, installed, re-calibrated on a regular basis, and used by scientists all over the planet for the last fifty long years ISN’T MEASURING IR AT ALL.
I have learned through bitter experience that I can’t touch that level of disconnect. As the doctor in “Macbeth” says, “This disease is beyond my practice.”
Look, I am truly impressed by lots of what you do. You have classy programming chops, and you are one of the few amateur scientists like myself who routinely does the hard yards to dig up the original data and analyze it yourself.
But on this question?
In all friendship, and I mean that seriously, I’m gonna pass.
My best to you as always,
w.
Sigh. You’ve adopted the cold view of things.
Cold – Negative Flux = Hot. See? Cold exists outside of hot.
Downwelling IR shines on top of a thermopile and most of the time comes out hotter on the other end of the thermopile.
Is this the thermopile greenhouse effect?
Sorry, but i thought you could think outside the box.
Or you can, but don’t want to be mocked by government-paid scientists?
“Sorry, but i thought you could think outside the box.”
That’s because Willis is locked in the box. Whichever way he looks he just sees box.
Or maybe he is locked in his steel greenhouse.
Yeah, it’s amazing. He can solve for a block, but not a pyrgeometer.
The idea that a heated case will emit through the thermopile, through the dome is forbidden.
Radiation to thermopile and conduction to the other end can only occur from cold to hot.
Why is the case usually warmer than the dome?
Must be cold helping warm get hotter. Couldn’t be hotter getting through the thermopile.
It’s sad.
I still believe in Downwelling IR, but only via convection from hot to cold. That’s the only case.
How can anyone defend Downwelling IR in general?
Zoe, I explained clearly why I’m passing on this question. Was there some part of “I’m gonna pass” that is hard for you to understand?
And insulting me makes me think less of you, not more. I offered you a gracious exit and complimented you on your strengths. Instead, you chose to stand on tiptoes to unsuccessfully try to bite my ankles. Why not just agree to disagree as I suggested and move on?
Making personal accusations about my mental abilities isn’t helping either you or your reputation. It just makes you look petty and vindictive, and I doubt you are either of those in real life.
In friendship,
w.
There is no such thing as Negative [IR] Flux. Above 0 K everything radiates. If such radiation hit something above zero emissivity/absorptivity, it is absorbed.
A pyrgeometer measures 2 things:
1) Temperature
2) Net IR flux, due to a difference of temperature above and below thermopile.
Net IR flux can be negative. In fact, most of the time it is .. for latitudes below ~45.
I invite you, then, to clearly state net IR flux instead of “Negative Flux.”
Last time and clearing up some misunderstandings on purpose (sad).
Anyone who thinks the thought experiment below will work and produce the 2C uplift in the way described is encouraged to do it for real and not necessarily in exactly the same proportions: all you have to do is stick to the relative temperatures which are:
Temp effect from the Sun alone at object> Temperature of local radiant heat source > Temperature effect from local radiant heat source at object alone > ambient.
The rewards will be huge – you will not only have proved the GHE, but completely destroyed the science of Thermodynamics. Your name will be in the textbooks for ever more.
Note also that these temperatures reflect the GHE relative temperatures broadly – and that’s also on purpose (Ambient in the GHE is ~4K = outer space).
To repeat: the GHE assumes that the radiation flux from the Sun is added to that of the radiation flux from GH gases and the result is an increase in temperature of the Earth’s surface from -18C to +14C.
Short summary of the GHE central process: two or more radiant heat sources can create a temperature at a target greater than any single radiant heat source can create at the same target.
If this step is not true, it doesn’t matter what else is true – the GHE fails.
This is the key mechanism.
And it is easy to see how it cannot be true; take the following example:
That cannot happen – and if it cannot be seen how it is impossible, I give up.
(However, if you manage to demonstrate this by experiment (see above) the world is your oyster.)
The conclusion is as follows:
Yes: downwelling radiation exists and can be measured (the radiation from the 35C source)
No: it does not increase the temperature of the Earth’s surface.
The GHE cannot exist.
You are wasting your breath, Zagzigger. Willis is a lukewarmer with no understanding of heat.
Have you seen the rubbish in his Steel Greenhouse claptrap?
Assume an ambient temperature of 0 C. Start a bonfire. Put a rock 2′ away. Let things settle down and measure the temperature of the rock. Start another bonfire 2′ on the other side of the rock. Let things settle down and measure the temperature of the rock. Is the rock hotter with 2 bonfires?
So, if a body (the Earth) receives a relatively fixed amount of energy from an external source (the Sun) then the body will achieve a relatively fixed temperature. But, if a second external source begins adding energy to the body (“Yes: downwelling radiation exists and can be measured …”), then the body cannot rise in temperature. Your logic is clearly beyond my intellect.
I am sorry but radiation doesn’t work that way. You need to read Planck’s treatise on heat and radiation. See the quote I placed later from his treatise.
Doing this using averages and algebra is hiding so much. Let’s put it this way. As some radiation is going out some is coming in. If the in part can’t replace or grow the part going out, the temp won’t rise.
Perhaps looking at it from the cool body will give you a better perspective. Will it continue past equilibrium and warm to a higher temp than the source originally was? If so, where did the extra energy come from for the whole system? Basically, the sun is providing the whole of the energy for the system. How did the system energy grow?
I don’t want to bring up entropy but reading Pplanck will help you understand.
Well, this thread has convinced me of two things:
• You can lead a horse to water, but teaching said equine to do the backstroke is damn nearly impossible.
• I need to choose my battles carefully, because otherwise, some of them will assuredly involve teaching the backstroke.
You are now free to continue hating on me in order to avoid discussing ideas …
w.
I’m not sure what you were expecting. The first paragraph in the post reads: “OK, folks, for everyone who wanted to put forth your favorite theory about how downwelling radiation from the atmosphere is a fantasy, or how a cool atmosphere can’t leave the surface warmer than no atmosphere, or how pyrgeometers are fatally imprecise … this is the thread for you.”
Sounds like an open call to me. I’m sure it is not surprising to you that some will not agree with your ideas. Nor is it surprising, I’m sure, that some will be unwilling to accept your teachings. There is nothing wrong with that. It takes a certain arrogance to think otherwise, and a level of blind hypocrisy to post this pyramid (based on my observations of the thread).
JCM
Aaaand JCM shows up to prove my point.
w.
It’s not clear what your point is. If one views himself as a teacher it is his responsibility to earn the respect to attract prospective students. A superiority complex does not meet that condition.
My point is that some people are so set in their ways that rather than discuss new ideas, they will immediately shift to attacking me if their ideas are threatened. So I should pick my battles.
I also posted a pyramid of disagreement, so hopefully some folks could understand where they fit in that spectrum.
Rather than discuss those thoughts, your immediate response was to accuse me of arrogance, blind hypocrisy, and a superiority complex … thus neatly proving my point.
w.
PS—I’m not looking to “attract prospective students” as you think. I’m looking to find people who actually attack my ideas rather than my style or personality, and who can expound clearly why my ideas are wrong. That’s how science progresses.
I recommend some introspection
Once again, you say nothing about the ideas in my comment. Instead, you just issue another insult by saying I’m not thinking enough about my own actions.
Hey, keep it up, you constantly re-emphasizing and re-proving my point is a good thing on my planet.
w.
Wow, I see you’ve quickly settled in on the bottom three tiers of the Pyramid. Way to be exhbit A of Willis’s post
Wow, yet another one who thinks he is above it all. All of us here are swimming in the same pile of dung whether you recognise it or not. All of us here are bottom feeders – do you see it? Nobody has any moral high ground here. It’s time to get over that sort of thing.
It’s not about “moral high ground” it’s about whether one choose to engage with the points (any of the higher tiers in that pyramid) or one chooses to be a troll (wallowing in the lower tiers), from your responses you’ve clearly chosen the later. That’s your choice, I just find it funny how butthurt you got because someone pointed out what you chose.
Another preacher without a leg to stand on. I’ve been shunned by this group days ago. I come back to see if anyone has anything interesting to say, and stop to troll along the way for entertainment value. Oh, and my butt is just fine but thanks for noticing.
It’s not a preach, it’s an observation. I must admit it is funny watching you get your knickers in a twist over the observation. Keep twisting.
I’m afraid you are retreating to the mechanics of arguments in general rather than dealing with the question at hand – which is “does the GHE exist?”.
I think we’ve seen enough doubt cast by Thorstein and Olsen’s paper – which said they can’t find the GHE through measurement. That came in for heavy criticism here, but please remember, nor has anyone else – otherwise we’d never hear the end of it.
So can we please stop the ongoing pretence / assumption that the GHE has been proven – it hasn’t.
In my small way, I’ve thrown out a thought experiment that proves that radiation fluxes cannot be added in the method demanded of the GHE – and nobody has refuted that either. I’ve also suggested that some try to actually perform my thought experiment (or a version of it) to disprove my assertion – but sadly nobody wants to do that either.
So all in all, a lot of waffle – but no confidence from anyone to either prove the GHE, or prove or disprove the flux-add mechanism. It’s a $200 experiment at most – but I think most people know the result without spending the money.
My thoughts too, Zagzigger, but if you disagree with Willis his cheerleaders will give you a negative uptick. I just moved yours back from -1 to 0.
His Steel Greenhouse hypothesis is ridiculous where in the addition of a shell, the core’s flux goes from 235W/M2 to 470W/M2 even though they are in thermal equilibrium.
Absolute rubbish which suits the majority of the posters on WUWT.
What is so hard about understanding the Steel Greenhouse. The core has an independent power source to heat it such that it radiates as a sphere at 235 W/m2 to its surroundings to keep from its total destruction by accumulated heat.
The added outer shell’s interior surrounding the core absorbs the 235 W/m2 emitted by the sphere in all directions and gradually heats up. At equilibrium, the outer shell must radiate 235 W/m2 to its outer surroundings to keep from total destruction by accumulated heat from the internal core power supply.
The shell, no matter how thick, has two surfaces. Each surface must radiate at 235 W/m2. The inner shell radiates at 235 W/m2 to the central spherical core. The core must heat up to reradiate the additional 235 W/m2, along with radiating the original 235 W/m2 from the energy provided by the internal power source. This must equal 470 W/m2 to balance the internal power plus the radiated energy received from the interior of the shell.
The outer shell, however, can only radiate outward 235 W/m2 to match the internal power source to keep conservation of energy of the total system. The internal power source provides the only energy for the system, and that source is constant. That energy must equal the energy ejected from the outer shell. The internal distribution of radiant fluxes does not change that fundamental physical fact.
Thanks, Dave. I’m glad both that you understand it perfectly, and that you’ve given such a clear description of what’s going on.
Regards,
w.
Thank you for your kind comment, Willis.
You need to do a course in thermodynamics, Wilbur.
470W/M2 from core to shell after thermal equilibrium? What a load of bollocks.
leitmotif
The best thing about leitmotif is that when he thinks something is incorrect, he provides all of the data, logic, math, and citations to demonstrate that it is actually wrong.
w.
Do the math.
The system is in equilibrium when the power output at the outer surface of the shell equals the power input to the core sphere, which causes the core to emit at 235 W/m2. The power to the core is a constant.
The interior of the shell radiates the same energy as the exterior side. That radiation has to go to the central core (target), thus further heating it such that total sphere radiation is 470 W/m2. That extra energy can be used by the space between the core and shell for any purpose needed. Use your imagination; you could create a whole new mini-world!
Dave,
Don’t be silly. The interior of the shell is colder than the core, as it is heated by it.
You wrote –
“The system is in equilibrium when the power output at the outer surface of the shell equals the power input to the core sphere, which causes the core to emit at 235 W/m2. The power to the core is a constant.”
In equilibrium with what? Itself?
”Extra energy”? Really? I’ll have all you can spare.
You are definitely using your imagination. Have you considered accepting reality?
After reading over 500 comments, it seems to me that “The Climate Science” is not quite settled yet. 🙂
Let History be the guide. It tells the CO2 story much better, and it’s a whole lot simpler than figuring out what radiative gases are doing to the Earth’s climate. History tells us what they were doing in the past (benign), and what they will probably continue doing (benign).
Amen to that, Brother!
Look to the past.
WUWT comment software, at one time, had a feature where after you had read an article, and then revisited it later, the new posts since the last time you visited would be highlighted in a different color so they were easily picked out from the things you had already read.
With over 500 comments in this thread, something like that would come in real handy again.
I think it’s a good argument. If the only gain the surface can have is from short wave, and the upwelling long wave exceeds that, wtf? You’ve cornered them into an undefensible position. Can this be applied to the oceans? Because some people say the atmosphere cannot warm the ocean.
Can the data you highlight break out oceans only? Assume the answer is yes. Then land warming only and the SST warming only should all roughly tie out. The radiation data by surface type should tie out to the BEST temperature rises by surface type
Yes I am an accountant. Which means you want roughly the same answer using two different methods. The books balance. And people say a business degree is a waste of time.
Long Wave Radiation impinges on the ocean surfaces the same as it does on land. Radiation energy is transferred to both surfaces. Some argue that the radiation hitting the oceans simply results in more evaporation. Since that applies to the land as well, its not much of an argument. Anyway, latent heat from evaporation is handled separately from the radiative transfers between the earth and atmosphere.
[[So there you have it. If you don’t think that downwelling LW radiation leaves the earth warmer than it would be if there was no atmosphere, you need to explain the mystery source of the additional energy necessary to keep the earth from freezing]]
Ugh! Yet another example of the fake physics lie that refuses to die.
Let’s see: “If on an ongoing basis the surface is only absorbing 150 W/m2 of solar energy and is radiating 395 W/m2 of energy … why isn’t it frozen solid?”
Duh, because energy in the form of photons has wavelength, which has Planck temperature, and the solar photons are at 5500C while the surface photons are in the range of -50C to +50C. And the 150 value is bogus because it is a claimed average over a flattened globe over a whole year, while instantaneous values alone actually exist, and go way higher, to 1000 and higher.
The big killer for CO2 global warming is that out of all the photon wavelengths that Earth’s surface radiates, atmospheric CO2 only absorbs and radiates at the wavelength of 15 microns, which has a Planck radiation temperature of -80C, completely outside the surface range. Thus it actually lets all the real surface heat photons pass through it untouched, and any 15 micron radiation it emits will be absorbed and reemitted over and over by other CO2 molecules until entropy harmlessly disperses it.
Speaking of entropy. Another big misunderstanding comes from failure to account for entropy. Planck black body radiation contains the maximum amount of entropy for a given amount of energy, which explains what happens to the energy from 5500C photons after they hit the Earth’s surface, and turn into way more puny -50C to +50C photons, namely, dispersal by entropy into the Heat Death of the Universe. The Looney Tunes climate scientists who try to equate the T^4 radiation from the Sun with the T^4 radiation from Earth’s surface seem to be missing that the two T values are way different, so raising them to the 4th power makes them even more different. Everything is running down and adding to the Heat Death of the Universe. Heat isn’t cheap, it’s dear, and only the Sun’s radiation heats the Earth’s surface, while the atmosphere just cools it, CO2 included, after dispersing more energy via convection.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01622-6
https://www.quora.com/How-does-the-increase-of-entropy-affect-the-environment/answer/TL-Winslow
As the world increasingly becomes a madhouse, it’s all the fault of the global Marxist-run U.N. IPCC, which has hijacked physics for political purposes and created the upside-down inside-out backwards phony field of climate science that is nothing but a beehive of lies to justify extreme leftist environmentalism’s visceral hatred of the oil industry. Nothing they say can be believed. There is no compromise. One must junk all of it and start over.
My growing body of students studying my free Climate Science 101 course are becoming the first real generation of climate scientists, who one day will replace the current generation of IPCC fake climate scientists. Don’t be left behind.
http://www.historyscoper.com/climatescience101.html
I take it that you don’t agree with Willis, TL? 🙂
Take a read of his Steel Greenhouse. It’s a doozy. If you like fantasy.
Try to convince Drs. Lindzen and Pielke, Sr.
I think the steel greenhouse is the biggest piece of sophistry from Wilbur.
The 470W/M2 radiating to the shell from the core in scenario B is totally weird. The core and the shell are in thermal equilibrium. They are at the same temperature. There is no transfer of energy between the core and the shell at thermal equilibrium. The shell outputs 235W/m2 to space just like the core in scenario A. Problem solved. Add 100 shells. Is the core going to explode?
Here is a lesson for you from Joseph Postma who you have trouble remembering, Willie. This is where Postma takes us through scenarios of a plate with a point object as the source, a parallel plate as the source and finally introducing a green plate on the side of the original plate away from the source. Notice the emphasis on view factors of a point source and a plane parallel source (similar to your shell).
https://climateofsophistry.com/2021/05/19/green-plate-analyzed-and-demolished/
It’s so simple and all done without adding fluxes to create something that does not exist.
Postma even cites the Eli Rabett website where this sophistry is explained. Several posters point out where Rabett went wrong especially one called “Unknown”.
Brilliant put-down for those interested in real science and not the drivel from warmists, likewarmists and those who practice sophistry.
https://rabett.blogspot.com/2017/10/an-evergreen-of-denial-is-that-colder.html
What happens to the radiation from the interior of the shell towards the core?
Dave,
I’ll bite. What happens to it?
Please don’t say it is absorbed by the core, and the core gets hotter as a result. That would just demonstrate complete detachment from reality on your part.
Consider Willis’ example. A ball of ice surrounded by more ice. Have fun.
As long as the ball of ice has a radioactive core heating it, OK. Of course, it wouldn’t be a ball of ice very long.
Get over it — its just a thought experiment.
Dave,
You wrote –
“As long as the ball of ice has a radioactive core heating it, OK. Of course, it wouldn’t be a ball of ice very long.”
Don’t be stupid. If it’s emitting 235 W/m2, it’s around -9 C, and held at that temperature, how could it melt? Fantasy climatological GHE ice, is it?
Don’t forget, you also wrote –
“What is so hard about understanding the Steel Greenhouse. The core has an independent power source to heat it such that it radiates as a sphere at 235 W/m2 to its surroundings to keep from its total destruction by accumulated heat.” Total destruction by heating to -9 C?
Or did you just turn the nuclear reactor up to 11?
Get over it. You’re as silly as Willis,
I’m sorry I got carelessly carried away with your ball of ice. The thought experiment is a steel sphere radiating out to a 4 K environment.
Additionally, the assumption was if the sphere can’t radiate away the energy supplied by the nuclear core, it will eventually destruct.
Dave,
Thanks for the clarification. You wrote –
“I’m sorry I got carelessly carried away with your ball of ice. The thought experiment is a steel sphere radiating out to a 4 K environment.
Additionally, the assumption was if the sphere can’t radiate away the energy supplied by the nuclear core, it will eventually destruct.”
Nope. No 4 K environment that I can see. Maybe I missed it. In any case, what’s so amazing about a steel sphere cooling by radiation?
Your assumption is groundless. In lieu of stated figures, assume a sphere of 1m2, radiating 235 W/m2. Nuclear output 235 W, no more, no less. Without a perfect insulator, you are snookered. No destruction. Not enough power. Even the Earth’s core never produced enough power to self destruct, even surrounded by iron, rock, water, atmosphere.
Try again.
You can easily see from these discussions that back radiation claim warming anything is purely a mathematical concoction on a paper , no real world observation and experiment can demonstrate it , as far as climate in particular , they literally have to claim the Sun shines at night in order to fudge up some kind of low energy level that has to be made up by “something”. that something being back radiation called the greenhouse effect
Uh, the Earth’s radiation at the surface has been measured. It exceeds the radiation from TOA, which just happens to equal the net input of the Sun at TOA. How can the Earth’s surface radiate at a rate greater than the Sun’s input?
Dave,
Uh, contrary to what GHE true believers think, your comment is just nonsensical.
Instruments to measure radiation across the entire physical spectrum just don’t exist.
Fantasy instruments do not count. Except for GHE true believers, bumbling buffoons, and their ilk.
Willis:
Regarding Fig. 1, where the top curve is labeled “Net Downwelling SW + LW”—what is meant by the “net” adjective? This sounds like something is being subtracted, but
presumably this is the upward pyranometer irradiance added to the upward pyrgeometer irradiance, which would be the 0.3-50um total irradiance. Is this correct?
Good question. “Net downwelling SW” is the total downwelling solar energy minus the amount of solar energy that is reflected by the albedo of the ground.
w.
Ah, so the SURFRAD number is:
Net Downwelling SW + LW =
(upward facing pyranometer) +
(upward facing prygeometer) –
(downward facing pyranometer)
Correct?
Willis,
You wrote –
“OK, folks, for everyone who wanted to put forth your favorite theory about how downwelling radiation from the atmosphere is a fantasy, or how a cool atmosphere can’t leave the surface warmer than no atmosphere, or how pyrgeometers are fatally imprecise … this is the thread for you.”
So. You have a ball of ice emitting 235 W/m2, surrounded by a “shell” of ice at precisely the same temperature (and of course emitting 235 W/m2). Do you really expect that a ball of ice totally surrounded by ice at the same temperature will magically get hotter?
You really believe that your fantasies are superior to fact, do you?
Why would anything at a constant temperature, totally surrounded by something at the same temperature, get hotter? Are you quite mad, or just temporally deluded?
Maybe you could avoid answering, and fly off at a tangent. That might convince others that faith transcends fact. What do you think?
Swenson, the part you are missing is that the shell is heated by the planet. So it starts out receiving 235 W/m2.
But the area of the shell is ~ twice that of the planet, so the shell is only radiating half of that on each side (inside and outside), or 117.5 W/m2.
Figure 1. Building a steel greenhouse. (A) Planet without greenhouse. Surface temperature is 235 W/m2 heated from the interior. (B) Planet surrounded by steel greenhouse shell. Shell radiates the same amount to space as the planet without the shell, 235 W/m2. It radiates the same inward, which warms the planet to 470 W/m2 (29 C, 83°F, 302 K). [Clarification added] Note that the distance from the shell to the planet is greatly exaggerated. In reality, it is close enough to the planet that the difference in the areas can be neglected in practice.
And since the planet is radiating 235 W/m2 but only half of that is making it to space, the entire system has to warm up. It is gaining more heat than it is losing.
It continues to warm until the planet is receiving 235 W/m2 from the radiation on the inside of the shell. At that point the planet is radiating 470 W/m2. The shell is radiating 235 W/m2 inwards and 235 W/m2 outwards. At that point, the system is losing to space the 235 W/m2, which is what is generated by the planet, so it won’t warm any further.
Note that the planet is getting 235 W/m2 from its nuclear core, and 235 W/m2 from the inward radiation from the shell, a total of 470 W/m2. It is radiating the same amount, 470 W/m2, so it is in steady-state, neither warming nor cooling.
The shell receives 470 W/m2 from the planet. It radiates 235 W/m2, but over twice the surface area. So it also is radiating what it is receiving.
Best regards,
w.
I realise you’re not a fan of mine but it’s worth pointing out that this schematic and steel house concept is completely contrary to nature. No amount of mental gymnastic will make it true in this preposterous scenario. You’re suggesting, effectively, that adding a narrow strip of emptiness between the core and a shell causes the surface of the core to reach a higher temperature. Whether or not you’ve got this gap and a shell it’s intuitive the new surface will radiate similar to 235 W/m2 assuming the shell and core have similar material heat properties. Does it matter, in your view, how wide this strip is between the core and the shell? Seems the addition of the shell creates a new surface that will radiate happily at 235 W/m2. What if the gap between core and shell is 1mm wide, does this impact anything in your mind? Is the width of the gap any relevance? At what point does the core and the shell simply represent one unit of mass? I know it’s a tired argument but it is worth re-stating that this adding of fluxes back in from the shell and calculating a temperature does not agree with any form of radiative mathematics that I’ve ever heard of. The measured energy fluxes in real Earth atmosphere are simply the result of the atmospheric temperature. The radiative arithmetic of adding in fluxes and supposing this is causing a temperature is complete fantasy. The atmosphere heats up to whatever temperature based on its various properties, such as mass and density, in a turbulent soup of fluid with no front or back. The measured fluxes are a consequence of those properties and the resulting temperature within the Earth system.
Furthermore, given enough mass (say half the mass of the core) the addition of the shell may in fact bring the whole system temperature DOWN as the energy generated from the nuclear process is now heating 1.5x the mass.
Putting my post above another way – suppose you create the shell using the outer few metres of the core. Mine the core and create your shell using this mined material. Place this shell, which is composed of the same material as the core, at whatever separation from the core you wish (the core is now slightly smaller but we’ve only mined a few metres). What do you suppose happens to the surface temperature of the original core? Does it go way up? Or does it stay the same? We have the same total nuclear energy source and same total mass, but in a slightly different configuration.
I believe that because of using schematic diagrams with imagined “directional flux density” arrows it tempts some people to ADD those fluxes with the result of an imaginary increase in temperature. It’s fascinating to watch the endless attempts to justify this inverted logic. In reality the observed flux density is the result of system energy and material properties. The observed flux will be the same regardless of the perspective of the observer. This is why longwave flux density in the atmosphere measured with today’s instruments is basically the same whether observed from above or below. In any scenario of warming (cooling) more (less) will be observed from any perspective. The flawed conceptualisation of this has led the field astray.
Using the core-shell visualization, once in steady state, there is no slowing of radiative flux. Any calculated steady state radiative flux density temperature effects occur instantaneously. In steady state the core and shell together can be considered to behave as a solid. From the outside you would only see a steel sphere. There is no air inside to build pressure for any internal temperature increase. Conversely, with an atmosphere of air there are many possible factors, not limited to convection, that introduce a net storage lag type mechanism due to turbulent fluid mass circulation. The concept of gas convection process includes all properties of conduction and advection. The core-shell visualization and flux labels in the graphic require the sum of flux density values to propose an increase of core surface temperature inside the sphere. Density properties can not be summed in this way – similarly, if i cut a piece of wood in two then glue it back together this does not result in a doubling of mass density. Energy flux (flow) density steady state approximate temperature effects are better described by differential calculus when considering interactions between different materials. For a simple description of the importance of mass and material properties in heat transfer for the steel dome model presented here are some calculations. Obviously steady state conditions require integrating (not included). https://courses.lumenlearning.com/physics/chapter/14-2-temperature-change-and-heat-capacity/
Willis can, I am sure, reply for himself. But I can also answer a few of your questions.
“ What if the gap between core and shell is 1mm wide, does this impact anything in your mind? “
The gap doesn’t really matter. Whether it is 1 mm or 1 m or 1 km, the impact for radiation will be basically the same.
* NOTE 1: There will be a correction if the radius of the shell, r(sh) is significantly larger than the radius of the planet, r(p). Then the temperature of the shell would be
T(sh) = 254 K * ( r(p)/r(sh) ) ^(1/2).
So if the shell is 10% larger in radius, it will be 5% lower in temperature than that bare planet. Willis is assuming both are approximately the same radius, so this is not a serious issue
* NOTE 2: There could be some quantum mechanical effects if the gap gets down to the wavelength of the IR. So a gap smaller than 0.1 mm might start to be a problem, but no one is proposing a planet-sized shell with a tolerance of less than 1 mm!
“given enough mass (say half the mass of the core) the addition of the shell may in fact bring the whole system temperature DOWN as the energy generated from the nuclear process is now heating 1.5x the mass.”
More mass would just impact the TIME it takes to reach a steady state, not the final temperature.
(Other than the fact that more mass could make the radius larger, which would impact the temperatures as outlined above.)
“The observed flux will be the same regardless of the perspective of the observer.”
Yes, the flux from the outside of the shell is 235 W/m2 and the temperature is 254 K.
Then intuitively, the deeper inward you go toward the core, the higher the temperature. Just like inside the earth. The gradient will depend on the ability of each layer to impede heat flow. If the planet is solid metal, the gradient will be small. If the planet is solid rock, the gradient will be larger. These are calculated from thermal conductivities. If there is a vacuum gap, then the thermal conductivity is infinite, and there is no heat conduction. But now there is radiation, so radiation will determine the temperature differences. A gap results in a temperature difference of 302K – 254K = 46 K for this geometry.
I’ll ask the same question I’ve asked before. Just where does the energy come from so the “shell” can radiate 235 in two directions?
You make a logical leap that “the entire system has to warm up” but you never explain where the energy to accomplish this warming comes from.
The energy comes from the nuclear core by way of the surface. It is then intercepted by the shell, which redirects half of it back downwards to further increase the surface temperature. This comes to a steady state when the shell is radiating the same amount that the planet radiated without the shell.
What the shell does is to slow the energy loss from the system. This is the same thing that happens when you put on a jacket in the winter. There’s no new energy, but because the jacket slows the energy loss, you end up warmer.
Note also that the jacket is colder than your body, but it leaves you warmer than you would be without it.
w.
Thank you for starting this. A lot of people need an education on energy and heat. Although we have not really touched on heat capacity and it’s part in the climate.
I do agree with what you just posted. It is important to learn that a cold body can not make a negative gradient. It can only reduce the rate of heat loss.
Willis,
Oh I see. You have managed to heat a ball using a much hotter body. A nuclear reactor, apparently. That’s novel.
Or are you saying that you have discovered insulation? Do you think that is novel, too?
Maybe you are saying that CO2 is really just planetary insulation – lIke Raymond Pierrehumbert?
Here’s a slight indication that you are just being silly – the Earth seems to have cooled over the last four and a half billion years, despite the hot core being surrounded by rock, water, CO2 and all the rest.
Got any more silly “thought experiments’ with infinite heat sources hidden up your sleeve?
Willis,
You wrote –
“Swenson, the part you are missing is that the shell is heated by the planet. So it starts out receiving 235 W/m2.”
You really think that your unsupported assertions are superior to fact, don’t you?
This is a usual tactic employed by GHE propagandists who find themselves caught out. I am missing no part of your nonsense.
You include a presumably infinite heat source which provides enough variable amounts of heat to make your silly fantasy appear correct.
Don’t believe me? OK, Have a ball of ice (or something) emitting 235 W/m2. Save all your diversionary heating by me accepting that the shell has miraculously heated to the same temperature as your ball. Now you have a ball at around 264 K surrounded by a shell with an absolute maximum possible temperature of 264 K. Your ball cannot make the shell warmer than the ball, can it?
Now you have a ball at 264 K totally surrounded by a shell at 264 K (or less).
What idiot is going to believe your calculations that show that the ball heats beyond 264 K? Oh, I see, you are going to put an infinite heat source into your system, and heat things to any temperature you like!
Tut, tut, Willis. You are not even a good illusionist. No wonder you have to portray fantasy as fact. You can’t even tell anyone where this supposedly scientific “Greenhouse Effect” may be observed and measured, let alone describe it in any meaningful way.
You are silly enough to think that you can just add “fluxes”, without regard to temperature. Try it. Put two ice cubes facing each other – in a freezer to keep them from melting, if you like.
According to you, each is receiving a “flux” (say 235 W/m2) and also emitting a “flux” of 235 W/m2. Surprise! In spite of your breathtakingly clever calculation (235 + 235 = 470), the ice cubes don’t melt! They just keep emitting 235 W/m2.
Learn some physics. Not GHE propaganda.
Swenson,
The ball of ice in your example, at a temperature of 264K, and emitting 235 w/m2, is just like the planet in the steel greenhouse diagram if the planet did not have an internal heat source.
The planet would be getting colder with or without the shell around it. The shell would only serve to slow the rate that the planet cools. Both planet and shell would approach absolute zero. No accumulation of heat whatsoever.
But in Willis’ thought experiment the planet is continuously heated by its core, and in that way is completely different than an ice cube. Different scenario, different result.
Western Hiker,
Oh, the cunning internal heat source. Like the Earth’s, I suppose. The inner core is surrounded by a series of shells – iron, rock, water etc. Powered by radioactivity! Woohoo!
The core still cools. Just like the rest of the Earth.
Gee. Reality or silly Willis?
“You include a presumably infinite heat source “
Well ‘nearly infinite’. Nuclear reactions in the core in this case provide a hypothesized constant rate of heat (235 W/m^2) for a (nearly) infinite time = infinite heat.
“which provides enough variable amounts of heat”
No. It provides a constant 235 W/m^2 of heat.
“Save all your diversionary heating by me accepting that the shell has miraculously heated to the same temperature as your ball.”
No, the shell is always cooler than the ball.
“Now you have a ball at around 264 K…”
I assume you mean 254 K. ‘
You seem to agree that the surroundings can be 254 K. You also accept that there is a heat source inside the ball. What person would believe calculations that show that the heated ball will be the same temperature as its surroundings? If I put a 235 W electric heater into a coffee pot, would anyone think it will stay the same temperature as the room?
Tim,
You wrote –
“No. It provides a constant 235 W/m^2 of heat.”
So the surface is maintained at 264 K, or so – less if emissivity is less than 1. For real ice, 256 K or so. Even colder. Presumably the nuclear core is at a temperature of 256 K, 264 K or whatever is necessary to produce a steady state emission of 235 W/m2.
And –
”No, the shell is always cooler than the ball.”
Couldn’t agree more. And Willis claims that totally enclosing a body with a colder shell makes it hotter! Not without surreptitiously cranking up the nuclear power output! The sort of thing you would do, eh Tim?
And –
“I assume you mean 254 K. “
And why is that, Tim? Can’t be bothered reading?
Then you try pointing out the blindingly obvious – thermometers react to heat! However, you didn’t realise that your fantasy heater has been regulated to get no hotter than room temperature.
Bad luck Tim.
I assumed you meant 254 K rather than 264 K because 254 K is the temperature for a blackbody emitting 235 W/m^2 to space. Typos happen and it is easy to hit “6” instead of “5”. I was giving the the benefit of the doubt. If you have some OTHER reason for choosing 264 K, you could let us know.
“So the surface is maintained at 264 K, or so – less if emissivity is less than 1. “
Again, the calculations lead to 254 K. And a lower emissivity would lead to a higher temperature, since the surfaces would have a harder time shedding energy via thermal radiation.
” And Willis claims that totally enclosing a body with a colder shell makes it hotter! “
If “it” is “the body”, then yes, enclosing the body within a shell at any temperature above 2.7 K does make the body warmer than if the body were out in space exposed to 2.7 K thermal radiation.
It is a standard physics / engineering problem to calculate radiation heat transfer and to find resulting temperatures. Anyone here with a basic background in physics / engineering should be to calculate the temperature of a body with an internal power supply of 235 W/m^2 inside a shell of temperature T(sh).
T(sh) T(body)
2.7 K 254K
100K 255 K
200K 275 K
300K 333 K
400K 415 K
The warmer the shell, the warmer the heated body within the shell. Willis’ claim is 100% intuitive. What would be truly remarkable would be if the body stayed at 254 K regardless of the temperature of the cooler surrounding shell!
“Then you try pointing out the blindingly obvious – thermometers react to heat!”
Actually, thermometers react to temperature.
“However, you didn’t realise that your fantasy heater has been regulated to get no hotter than room temperature.”
Well, this is Willis’ ‘fantasy heater’. And it has been regulated to provide a constant power — not to reach a specific temperature. Once again, you get the science wrong.
Bad science, Swenson.
The initial gradient will be reduced so it takes longer to reach equilibrium but once the 254 deg is reached it will warm no further.
Tim,
Apologies. My memory was faulty. I read 235 as 275. Oh well, nobody’s perfect.
As to the rest of your attempt to further Willis’ illusion, I might as well point to the Earth, and reality. The Earth’s power source is insufficient even to maintain the present surface temperature. It is cooling. You may put as many overcoats on a cooling body as you wish, its temperature will not rise.
if you are too obsessed or stupid to accept reality, you are welcome to the Climate Idiots Clan.
You are merely a religious zealot. You can’t even say where the mythical GHE may be observed and measured, which means that your religious beliefs cannot be tested by following the scientific method.
But I digress. Take a sphere with a surface area of 1m2. Supply a power source generating 235 W. Result 235 W/m2.
Now surround it with a shell, steel or otherwise, at a distance which ensures the shell is radiating 235 W/m2 towards space. That is what Willis’ silly cartoon indicates, doesn’t it?
”Oh,” you say, “That’s impossible. The outer shell has a greater surface area than the sphere – and the power of the heat source is limited to 235 W.”
You did write “Well, this is Willis’ ‘fantasy heater’. And it has been regulated to provide a constant power — not to reach a specific temperature. Once again, you get the science wrong.”, didn’t you?
Tell me again, how I got the science wrong.Then tell me why anybody should take any notice of a religious zealot, who can’t even see the stupid assumptions in Willis’ nonsense.
Carry on being a GHE proselytiser Tim. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to produce your God, and I don’t expect you to be able to produce your GHE.
Have fun.
From the Earth’s perspective the energy provided by the Sun (generator) is constant for the purpose of discussing the topic under discussion. That energy, by itself, does not determine the average temperature of the Earth’s surface. We know from measurements that the Earth radiates more energy than it receives on average from the Sun, thus it is hotter than would be the case if received energy only from the Sun. Where is that extra energy coming from?
Dave Fair June 1, 2021 10:19 pm
Citation? I’ve never seen any evidence for that claim.
w.
Willis, Perhaps Dave is referring to the well-know geothermal heat flow from the interior. But this only about 0.065 W/m^2, so it is lost in the noise of all the other energy flows.
Wait, I bet he is referring to the earth’s surface receiving less energy from the sun (~161 W/m^2) than it radiates (~ 396 W/m^2). The ‘extra’ comes from backradiation.
TOA radiates the same energy as provided at TOA by the Sun. The Earth’s surface radiates more energy than that provided by the net Sun at the surface. No?
I can destroy this pictured greenhouse fallacy once for all and in such a simple way that everyone can understand without any science education, physix, and math, other than 1+1=2 and 1-1= 0
First stop thinking watts, energy, and flux, and what can warm up what, and simply convert watts to money, just like you pay your energy bill put a cost of one watt as one dollar , since they already call it “energy budget” it should not be hard to grasp and it will help greatly to understand the rest.
In the picture the planet produced 235 watts, that planet is now you with 235 dollars in your hand you produced at work today.
in the picture the planet radiated those 235 watts upwards, now imagine you throw your 250 dollars in to the air , how many dollars do you have now ? you have 0 dollars,
you can wait when the money falls back down and catch it , how many dollars do you have now ? you have 250 again
now look at the picture, the planet radiated its 235 watts but yet it keeps them at the same time as if they never left, because when it supposedly returns it adds it up to the original 235watts that were supposed to have left, as if they never did, and turns it into 470 watts , that is the fallacious math,
but wait , it gets worse.
Now imagine instead the shell in the picture, there is a guy hanging above you and he catches the 235 dollars you threw up, now this guy throws your 235 dollars up again all the way into the space, does he still have 235 dollars to throw back down to you ?, no he doesn’t , but in the picture the shell re-radiates the same 235 watts in two different directions at once.
So the change from 235W no shell planet to 470W with shell planet is double counting deception trick.
Do you see it now that the whole thing is a complete nonsense ?
Eben, that’s an interesting analogy. However, in my example the nuclear core is producing new heat constantly. Same in the real world, the sun adds heat constantly. So it’s as if you had a salary of say $235 per day.
Now, without a shell, it’s like you throw $235 up and it goes straight to outer space. So you get $235 per day, you lose $235 per day, steady state.
Now suppose that, just as in your example, there’s a guy hanging in the air and he is catching your money. He takes half of it, $117.50, and throws it into space, and he gives the other half back to you.
When that happens, the next day you get your salary of $235 per day, PLUS the $117.50. So now you’re throwing about $350 into the air. The man catches it again, throws half, $175 into space, and gives $175 to you.
Here’s how that works out over time:
Note that, just as with the steel greenhouse, you end up throwing $470 skyward every day at steady state. No physical laws broken, you just end up with more money in your pocket every day.
No double counting, no deception.
Regards,
w.
Willis,
You wrote –
“Eben, that’s an interesting analogy. However, in my example the nuclear core is producing new heat constantly. Same in the real world, the sun adds heat constantly.”
Don’t be silly, Willis. In the real world, the sun is outside your imaginary shell, isn’t it?
That seems to be a problem. But anyway, what happened to your conservation of energy (within your system)? Did you only throw that in to sound scientific?
You are obviously unaware that the Earth does have a nuclear core, presently converting around 20 tonnes of matter into energy every year. In your fantasy “thought experiment” you forgot to include the sun, obviously.
I don’t blame you. Your steel shell would prevent sunlight from reaching the surface, and complicate the issue, as presumably your core and shell are orbiting said sun. Or not, in which case your shell would only shade one side of your core, in which case you would need a special nuclear reactor to heat the shaded side more than the other side, to arrive at the -9 C core surface temperature.
You don’t actually know what you are talking about, do you?
The Earth has a nuclear core. It also has sunshine. The Earth has cooled over the past four and a half billion years or so.
Maybe you could come up with a “thought experiment” to explain reality?
Or just stick with your silly fantasies.
Swenson May 31, 2021 7:25 pm
You seem to not understand the concept of a “thought experiment”. See the website here for an explanation.
Or you could look at another thought experiment, one in which the sun is outside the shell … it’s here.
Finally, let me suggest that you emulate the rooster.
Wait until it’s actually dawn before you start crowing.
Regards,
w.
Willis,
Whatever happened to “As Usual I Politely But Loudly Request: QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING. I can defend my own words. I can’t defend your interpretation of my words.”?
Why do you think I do not understand the concept of a thought experiment? You are no Einstein or Schrodinger – and I understand their thought experiments.
You have made an unsolicited suggestion –
“Finally, let me suggest that you emulate the rooster.
Wait until it’s actually dawn before you start crowing.”
Suggest what you like. I’ll ignore it if I choose. If you don’t like it, tough.
The Earth’s inner core (at around 5400 K) is totally enclosed by a shell of iron, and rock, and water, and . . . The inner core seems to be cooling. So much for your “thought experiment”. Fact has apparently triumphed over your fantasy.
Boo hoo. Bad luck. Better luck next time.
Willis:
you do realise that “Swenson” is the most active and intrangent Troll in the Climate debate.
Real name is Mike Flynn … usually confines himself to Roy’s site where similar odd-balls reside and threads such as this go into many thousands of posts of bizarre ping ponging.
Thanks, Passing.
w.
Willis, you are violating a law of radiation from a body. That is, a body at a given temperature radiates equally from all surfaces. That is one reason “surface area” is included when calculating heat transfer. Your table starts off with both bodies apparently being at equilibrium but you then divide the radiation between two surfaces of the same body. You can’t do that.
If the outer shell is at whatever temperature gives 235 watts of energy being radiated, it will radiate 235 watts from all surfaces equally. This places the inner and outer shells in equilibrium with equal amounts of radiation moving between them. At that point, there is no longer heat being transferred and no further increase in temperature.
Your table should have started and ended with the first entry.
Planck says it this way.
Contrary to my understanding of your example, the core is not losing energy to the shell which is initially at the assumed 0 K of its surroundings. Instantaneously, the energy radiated from the core is replenished by the power source alone. As the shell heats, it begins to radiate towards the core and the core, absorbing that energy, will continue to heat up until it is hot enough to radiate 470 W/m2 such that the shell can radiate outward 235 W/m2 and inward at 235 W/m2 at equilibrium, totaling the core’s 470 W/m2.
Radiation is not “split” between sides of a substance. Even Planck recognized this. If a substance is at a given temperature it radiates equally in all directions BASED on the temperature.
Energy, energy, energy. The two surfaces combined reradiate the energy the whole body receives.
No, the two surfaces EACH radiate the energy based on the total temp of the volume! It IS NOT combined. That would mean you would divide the energy by 6 for a square volume.
The result of what you are saying is that you would need to measure both sides to determine that absolute energy/temperature. Your claim is a plate at 1000 deg would radiate at 500 deg from each side so their combination would equal 1000.
Planck says bodies don’t radiate from the surface, they radiate in all directions from the interior THROUGH the surface. If you like I can provide a quote.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading this post (and many like it that have led up to this) – both sides of the argument are helping me understanding this more. Despite the trolling, it’s so important to have this free exchange. Long may it continue.
However, I have a question relating to entropy and if back radiation violates it. A bit late, but if anyone has the time and energy, maybe they could help.
My grasp of entropy goes like this: The sun illuminates the earth with a high temp and low relative entropy. The Earth absorbs all this energy and through various interactions, warms up and radiates infrared energy to space which will be a higher relative entropy than the energy it got from the Sun. The outcome for that IR to space is, lower quality energy and less ability to do work. So basically, it’s a system wide cooling process using a temporary low entropy warming ‘engine’ that maintains equilibrium.
The UWIR from the surface then gets absorbed then bangs around the atmosphere until it’s free to radiate at TOA, which is in a part of the atmosphere that’s a much lower temp. All the while the entropy is going up due to the collisions and loss of energy.
So this is bit I’m struggling with. The back radiation causes the surface to warm which means there is more ‘better quality’ energy at the surface to do more work with than there was before. (assuming that the radiation is unimpeded by the air molecules it has to re-pass through) So in effect the entropy of the system goes down (and gains work ‘quality) by absorbing it’s own lower energy radiation. .
Is this not some violation of entropy? How can an object radiate energy and increase entropy in the process (as the entire system is cooling), and then receive a portion of that energy back, which causes a reduction in that entropy by the surface warming? Does it imply that the Earth has generated it’s own ability to create extra energy to do work, through what is essentially a system wide cooling process? Perhaps the process is exporting that low entropy surface to a emergent structure that is increasing entropy at a faster rate to ensure the whole system increases entropy? Is there such an emergent structure? What would it be?
I slightly relate this to a comment I made in a post a few weeks ago, where I wondered how a molecules at a higher vibrational state at the surface were able to absorb energy from a low energy source, assuming that the higher temp state (surface) has got all it’s vibrational states filled by conduction from nearby molecules. Wouldn’t the energy be scattered and not absorbed if the frequency doors were shut?
So combing my two current lines of reading, I currently think downwelling radiation exists and is measured by devices pointing upward, but it’s scattered from the surface in the opposite direction (and not detected). But my head scratching bit is that the radiation would decrease the entropy of the surface- by raising the temp – and then give itself an extra capacity to do work. Work from work…etc. A low entropy state, from a higher one. That flies in the face of what I understand about entropy and the (max entropy) heat death of the universe.
Plus, as the troposphere is supposed to warm from back radiation, there is not emergent system wide cooling process under current AGW theory that offsets this entropy reduction at the surface. That kinda suggests that something else is going on when you put it in terms of entropy? If the planet is always tending to equilibrium with CO2 rise (net zero change in entropy) how can it lower it’s own local state while not creating a suitable structural process to restore the system wide increase?
I’m probably way too late for this comment stream, but it’s been interesting. I really should be at work! Entropy…..interesting (but confusing!)
Part of the confusion is thinking information theory entropy is the same as thermodynamic entropy. The two are not the same. The obvious difference is that the units don’t match. However, Frank Lambert does a better job of explaining this.
The laws of classical thermodynamics should only be applied where they are defined. There are three basic system types in thermodynamics: open, closed, and isolated. An open system allows both energy and matter to cross the system boundary; a closed system only allows energy to cross the system boundary; and an isolated system doesn’t allow either to cross the system boundary.
The second law only applies to isolated systems. The Universe as a whole is considered to be an isolated system. Open and closed systems may obey the second law, but they aren’t required to. If they did, then nothing could cool off. An isolated system will tend to equilibrium. Entropy will increase in an isolated system until equilibrium is reached, and at equilibrium the change in entropy is zero.
The Earth’s atmosphere is an open system and is not required to obey the second law in its entirety–parts may. (It’s sometimes modeled as a closed system.)
Pompeydano, “…. Is this not some violation of entropy? How can an object radiate energy and increase entropy in the process (as the entire system is cooling), and then receive a portion of that energy back, which causes a reduction in that entropy by the surface warming? ….”
In the comment, May 31, 2021 1:32 am, Willis’ nuclear heat generating planet is radiating 235 W/m2 to space at the surface temperature 253.7 K (-19.4 °C).
Power = sigma* epsilon*(Th^4 – Tc^4) = 5.67*10^-8*1*(253.7^4 – 3^4) = 235 W/m2.
For the planet still to be able to radiate net 235 W/m2 when shielded then the planet surface temperature increases to 301.7 K (28.6 °C) because the shield is at 253.7 K and that is quite higher than the space at 3 K :
Power = 5.67*10^-8*1*(301.7^4 – 253.7^4) = 470 – 235 = 235 W/m2.
Heat is transfered from warm to cold to coldest (as also from the earth surface to the atmosphere to the space) with no violation of thermodynamic laws.
See page 31 – 34 for radiating effects with shields :
heat_4e_chap13-radiation_ht_lecture-pdf.pdf
From page 35 for absorbing and emitting gases (CO2 and H2O) in furnaces and combustion chambers as by Hottel et al based on experimental data.
Kind regards
Anders Rasmusson
Link : https://www.scribd.com/document/295204359/Heat-4e-Chap13-Radiation-HT-Lecture-PDF?language_settings_changed=English
pompeydano:
You ask an excellent question about entropy, and one that goes to the root of the confusion many people have about these issues.
The basic equation relating heat transfer and entropy for an object is:
dS = dQ / T
where dQ is the heat transfer (expressed here as an infinitesimal) in Joules, and T is the absolute temperature of the object at the moment in Kelvin, so dS is the (infinitesimal) change in entropy of the object, in Joules per Kelvin.
Note that transfers out of the system are negative values for Q.
Expressed as rate of change, we have:
dS/dt = (dQ/dt) / T
where “t” is time, dQ/dt is the rate of transfer in Watts, and dS/dt is the rate of entropy change in Watts per Kelvin.
To analyze a real system, of course, you need to integrate over area, and possibly over time. I will use simple examples here, so we can just multiply.
I will use values from Willis’ “steel greenhouse” example to illustrate, and to keep the math even simpler, use two blackbody plates each of 1 square meter area, separated by a vacuum, and close enough that edge effects are insignificant.
Plate 1 is presently at 303K, radiating 470 W/m2, and so a power output of 470W.
Plate 2 is presently at 255K, radiating 235 W/m2, and so a power output of 235W.
Let’s look at Plate 1’s output first.
dS/dt [1->] = -470W / 303K = -1.55 W/K
But wait, the entropy of Plate 1 is DECREASING as a result of that radiative output! Doesn’t that violate the 2nd Law? No, because you have to look at the full process. So we look at Plate 2’s absorption of this radiation.
dS/dt [->2] = +470W / 255K = +1.84 W/K
So the total entropy change is:
dS/dt [1->2] = 1.84 – 1.55 = +0.29 W/K
This is increasing entropy, so no 2nd Law violation here.
Now let’s look at Plate 2’s output:
dS/dt [2->] = -235W / 255K = -0.92 W/K
And Plate 1’s absorption of this radiation yields:
dS/dt [->1] = +235W / 303K = +0.78 W/K
So the total entropy change is:
dS/dt [2->1] = 0.78 – 0.92 = -0.14 W/K
But wait! The entropy of the two plates is decreasing because of this transfer. Doesn’t this violate the 2nd Law? Again, no, because you have to look at the full process. This transfer is part of the same process as the radiation from Plate 1 to 2. They are inseparable (and this is key!). So we have for the entire process of radiative exchange between the plates:
dS/dt [1<->2] = 0.29 – 0.14 = +0.15 W/K
So there is a positive entropy change as a result of the full process, so no violation of the 2nd Law.
Of course, we could also streamline this. The net heat flow is 235 W from 303 K to 255 K.
dS/dt = -235W/303K + 235W/255K = -0.776 W/K + 0.922 W/K = 0.146 W/K
Whether we look at two-way energy flows or net heat flows, the result is the same.
pompeydano: Clifford Truesdell wrote in his book on the history of thermodynamics that: “Every physicist knows exactly what the first and second laws (of thermodynamics) mean, but it is my experience that no two physicists agree about them.” This may have been a bit of an exaggeration but the commenter evidence around here tends to agree with Cliff. Your best source to answer all your formidable questions is a beginning college text on atm. thermodynamics not the comments around here.
Ed Bo & Tim, your work has caused me a headache trying to follow. Perhaps you have a more detailed source to supply for me to do so. Headache causes:
1) The equation for change of entropy in a solid plate of steel involves steel Cv or Cp depending on the process or assumptions and neither of you have included the C term so your results are therefore at first sight questionable.
2) Y’all apparently have surmised that if entropy increases in a heating process, then entropy decreases in a cooling process. A reasonable expectation but that is not true which attests to the peculiarity of entropy. For both heating and cooling, the entropy of the universe increases which follows from the proper entropy change formula (S-So = C*ln(T/To)) in a solid like your steel plates; To being a ref. temperature which you have not supplied like you have not supplied C.
3) A hint where your thought process starts out problematically is where Q is already a heating rate and you have made Q into a rate of a rate and you never integrate over time as you say should be done since every process takes time.
That’s about as far as I got trying to parse your work & assumptions before my headache became unbearable, maybe you can provide more background detail for some aspirin.
Trick:
Good questions all. Let me see if I can give good answers.
My example rate calculations were only for an instant where the two plates had those particular temperatures. What happens next is dependent on other aspects of the problem.
In Willis’ steel greenhouse problem, the sphere and shell are in steady-state conditions, so enough power is supplied to the first plate (his sphere) and enough emitted away from the second plate (his shell) to keep the temperature constant, then the thermal capacitance C of these objects is not an issue there.
I used capital Q as the ENERGY transferred (in Joules), so dQ/dt is the rate of energy transfer (in Watts). Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
The entropy of an object DOES decrease when its temperature goes down. However, when the energy it loses during the temperature reduction is absorbed by a lower-temperature body (like Plate 2 in my example), that body’s entropy increases MORE than the cooling body’s entropy increases. So the entropy of the whole system (of the universe if you prefer) increases as a result of this total process.
The thermal capacitance C comes into play when the temperature changes. The greater C is, the smaller the temperature change for a given energy input or output.
I note that you are using the entropy equation for a single object – which DOES show the entropy increasing with temperature — and trying to apply it to the entropy of the universe as a whole.
Ed, when you switch to plates you leave out detail. Is there still a finite power source as in Willis’ example in plate 1?
“..to keep the temperature constant…”
Don’t have much time for detail so I’ll just write then in the instant you mention your solid object 1 entropy is constant since temperature is constant so its dS/dt = 0 not -1.55.
Over time, if no plate power source, then C is important for the real answer for dS/dt and your correct answer thus is not -1.55. If a power source exists as in Willis’ example to keep plate 1 steady state temperature identically constant, then its dS/dt=0 and universe entropy increases as the power source is used up.
In a solid, you cannot have Q simply as energy, Q is a rate over the time solid’s U changes, so the solid Cv or Cp is needed to get your correct answer for solid dS/dt.
Trick:
In my parallel plate example, I am only considering the two plates. My calculations are for the radiative heat transfers between those only. So the dS/dt from Plate 1’s output to Plate 2 is -1.55 W/K, and for its input from Plate 2, the dS/dt is +0.78 W/K, for a net of -0.77 W/K from the exchange.
In Willis’ example, Plate 1 is receiving 235 W from the core providing a dS/dt of +0.77 W/K, so the net dS/dt and T are constant.
But no, C is NOT important for calculating dS/dt. The equation for temperature change as a result of heat transfer is:
dT/dt = (1/C) * dQ/dt
The C in the denominator here cancels out the C in the numerator in your equation for entropy change.
The equations and terminology I have been using are straight out of introductory thermodynamics texts.
“The equations and terminology I have been using are straight out of introductory thermodynamics texts.”
Well that’s what I was interested to check in detail; please give your citation so I can do so since as it looks to me like you have misused or missed an assumption because you leave out Cv,Cp (which are so close for a solid such as steel that the difference can be assumed away) getting what appears to be the wrong answer for your “only considering the two plates.”
Because it looks like you miss Q is already a rate to start with. Starting correctly your uncited text(s) should find for the rate of change of entropy of a homogeneous solid substance undergoing a constant volume process where Q is the heating rate:
dS/dt = Q/T = 1/T * dU/dt = Cv/T * dT/dt
which is not what you apparently used to compute -1.55 as you have left out Cv (or Cp for a constant pressure process) in your plate example (which integrated is the S-So formula I noted assuming C is approximately independent of temperature over the T range of interest in our atm.).
Trick:
In one of the textbooks I used many years ago — “Engineering Thermodynamics” by Reynolds and Perkins — one of the first equations presented is:
DeltaE = Q + W
where Q and W are explicitly labeled as ENERGY inputs, and DeltaE is labeled as “increase in ENERGY storage”. In a preceding paragraph, it states “The symbol Q is usually employed to represent an amount of ENERGY transfer as heat”. I have found this usage widely used in a large variety of sources.
(In our simple example, there is no work done, and the only energy change is internal energy U, so the equation reduces to DeltaU=Q.)
Regardless, I am specifically and consistently using Q as energy (in Joules), not power (in Watts). When talking about power, I am using dQ/dt.
But to the more central point: let’s look at your equation for entropy in differential form:
dS = C (1/T) dT
so:
dS/dT = C/T
You note that this has the thermal capacitance C in it. But look at the equation for temperature change as a function of heat input:
dT = (1/C) dQ
The larger the capacitance, the smaller the temperature change per unit of heat input.
So:
dT/dQ = 1/C
Now, by the chain rule:
dS/dQ = dS/dT * dT/dQ = (C/T) * (1/C) = 1/T
So:
dS = dQ/T
As I said before, the capacitance term cancels out in the relationship between heat transfer and entropy change.
“DeltaU=Q”
For a change in U, time is required so this equation is per unit time. Thus, here Q is really Q dot despite the verbiage.
Many texts do leave out the verbiage for unit time but you should know every process takes time so Cv,Cp cannot be correctly canceled out of the relationship for a change in entropy & energy change & temperature change as you do. Q is universally a heating rate by virtue of a temperature difference not an amount.
“But to the more central point: let’s look at your equation for entropy in differential form:
dS = C (1/T) dT”
That’s not my eqn. which is for an infinitesimal change in entropy S over time increment dt:
dS/dt = C (1/T) * dT/dt
The only…ONLY way C can cancel out is if entropy is constant which cannot happen in any real process (such as your plate example) due 2LOT. It’s possible to imagine a reversible process but none exist, you need to include Cv,Cp.
I’ll look up the text in my college library, might take a few days, and look for the words you note, a page ref. would save time. In the meantime, consider the differences in eqn.s:
Your dS = dQ/T
versus textbook: dS/dt = Q/T = 1/T * dU/dt = Cv/T * dT/dt
Trick:
I’m afraid you are so confused on very basic topics that you are lost before you get started.
A change (deltaX) in a quantity is NOT equivalent to a rate of change (dX/dt). The units aren’t even the same.
The 1st Law equations I have given you are explicitly about energy, not power. They hold true regardless of the rate of change.
Every source I can find, both printed text and on-line references, uses Q as heat transfer ENERGY, not power.
The equation YOU gave for entropy — S-S0 = C*ln(T/T0) — is NOT in terms of rate either. I correctly use its differential form dS = C * (1/T) dT.
Even if you consider the rate equations, your point does not hold.
Converting YOUR equation to rate by differentiating with respect to time, we get:
dS/dt = C * (1/T) * dT/dt
But dT/dt = (1/C) * dQ/dt {using the standard thermodynamic notation of Q as heat transfer energy}
dS/dt = C * (1/T) * (1/C) * dQ/dt
dS/dt = (1/T) * dQ/dt
dS/dQ = 1/T
dS = dQ/T
As I keep saying, the thermal capacitance term C cancels out when talking about the relationship between S and Q. None of your analysis actually shows otherwise.
You have the same understanding as I do. But, when you include “c” you must also include mass. This makes sense when determining the change in T. The same energy will change the T over a given time “t” differently for varying masses.
Ed: “A change (deltaX) in a quantity is NOT equivalent to a rate of change (dX/dt). The units aren’t even the same.”
Yes Jim 11:00am, Ed confusedly wrote above trying to show an amount IS equivalent to a rate:
“So the total entropy change is: dS/dt [1->2] = 1.84 – 1.55 = +0.29 W/K”
Total entropy change is NOT a rate; total entropy change is an amount computed from & as I wrote the integral of dS/dt:
S-So= C*ln(T/To)
There is no escaping Ed must use C and a reference temperature to compute “the total entropy change” in Ed’s steel plates. I will look for Ed’s cited text and find where Ed goes wrong but it will take some time.
Remember Cliff Truesdell: “Every physicist knows exactly what the first and second laws (of thermodynamics) mean, but it is my experience that no two physicists agree about them.”
Well, I find my local college library is covid19 open only to students/staff/faculty at present so Ed’s cited book search will not be as quick as I thought. I find it interesting to track these things down as I learn stuff on the way. My experience is as Cliff Truesdell notes, even textbook authors are notorious for being sloppy & especially I have found that true in the field of Thermodynamics. If you consult 5 books on the subject, you get 5 defn.s of heat. I remember Willis posting up a comment showing like a dozen different defn.s of heat.
Ask any historian of science. Better yet, for text book author issues read Tony Rothman’s (2003) delightful “Everything’s Relative and Other Fables from Science and Technology”, John Wiley & Sons. Another good source is “Dictionary of Scientific Biography” the DSB is the first place to look if you want to know what our illustrious predecessors really did and said.
I ordered Ed’s cited text, a page number from Ed will save time:
“Your request for Engineering Thermodynamics [by] William C. Reynolds [and] Henry C. Perkins. was successful. Your request will be delivered to your Local Library when it is available.”
This process will take ~week though.
Trick:
I’m glad you were able to track down that thermodynamics text. It’s a good one.
In my copy (2nd Edition), the First Law equation is #2-18a on page 48.
The entropy-heat relationship dS = dQ/T is equation #7-43 on page 213. (No C in the equation…)
Both are part of a larger discussion which is well worth your time. In fact, the whole text is worth your time.
I remain mystified that you cannot accept that C * (1/C) = 1. I have explained it explicity both in terms of change and rate of change. I’ll try once more, easy on the math.
You keep using the equation relating entropy change to temperature change, which has C in the numerator.
But the equation relating temperature change to heat input has C in the denominator.
So the resulting equation relating entropy change to heat input (which is the product of these two) has C both in the numerator and in the denominator, which means C disappears from the equation.
It’s that simple!
Ed, C (specific heat capacity in J/kg K) cannot be made to disappear out of the text book formula for amount of your calculated “total entropy change” in each of your solid steel plates which is:
S-So= C*ln(T/To)
I do not see how Reynolds & Perkins can make C disappear for “the total entropy change” in a solid (or liquid) but I will find out in a week or so, thanks for the page ref.s.
11:00am: C is the specific heat capacity in S-So= C*ln(T/To)
Tim:
Of course you are correct here. But I explained it the way I did to demonstrate that looking at the “back radiation” in isolation can lead to erroneous conclusions.
As I have read thru all the responses I continually see a misconception about how radiation from a body works.
At a given temperature a body radiates in all directions equally. Example, you put a metal plate in a furnace until it is white hot. You don’t have to measure both sides with an infrared thermometer to get the total temperature. You don’t have to measure all six sides of an ingot and add the readings to get the real total temperature.
This applies to point sources and homogenous bodies of any shape. Radiation won’t spontaneously occur from outside the surface of the body due to heat inside the body.
Eli Rabitt’s green/blue plate suffers from this problem as do several of the models and explanations given in this thread. For those here that use a concentric shell model, remember, what you are heating with radiation is the shell. The shell will then radiate both in and out at the same level. Heating caused by incoming radiation and subsequent outgoing radiation is NOT DIVIDED between the two surfaces.
For those who like the bucket model. The model should be one where water entering the second bucket is pumped back into the first bucket. Even you pump every bit of water entering the second bucket back into the first bucket, you will never get anything but equilibrium. This meets the conservation of energy law while adding extra water into the system does not.
I also want to emphasize that none of this discussion has dealt with heat capacity and specific heat capacity. Radiation can do one of two things, it can raise the internal energy of a substance thereby raising its temperature OR it can be radiated away thereby lowering its internal energy and temperature. Radiation can not do both at the same time. What that means is that bodies with high specific heat capacity must capture more energy radiation to raise their internal temperature so they can radiate more. This changes a number of factors such as the gradient involved in heating or cooling a body. This is probably less important when equilibrium is established but with a rotating earth, one must consider this in calculating temperature changes.
“For those who like the bucket model. The model should be one where water entering the second bucket is pumped back into the first bucket. Even you pump every bit of water entering the second bucket back into the first bucket, you will never get anything but equilibrium.”
You seem to be overlooking the continued input of ‘water’ in the model. The 2nd bucket leaks evenly in both directions. So the 1st bucket gets 117.5 liters from the 2nd bucket + 235 new liters of water from the ‘input hose’. No water is ‘created by doing this — more water flows in to the system (the buckets) (235 L/s) than flows out of the system (initially 0 L/s, then 117.5 L/s, and slowly growing to 235 L/s). This imbalance allows the water to build up in the buckets without ‘creating any water’.
Willis went through the same thing upthread, only with money instead of water.
Tim,
Buckets? Money? What’s next? Overcoats? Bathtubs?
Have you not heard of the scientific method?
Show me your GHE. Describe it – tell me where I might observe it, and measure it.
Is it a bucket? Or insulation, perhaps?
If not, why keep rambling about things you claim it isn’t, and instead tell everyone what it is. What’s the matter – cat got your tongue?
Go and cry on Willis’ shoulder. You seem to share the same bizarre fantasy.
Bugger off back to Roy’s Flynn
Jim, please read Anders Rasmusson’s reply to pompeydano, above. I assume you will be able to see where the calculations came from.